


Fixing a Hole

by Jmetropolis



Series: You're the One [4]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Arguing, Awkwardness, Basketball, Bathtubs, Children, Children's Literature, Cuddling & Snuggling, Doctor Midorima, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Family, Family Dinners, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Future Fic, Humor, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Love, M/M, Makeup Sex, Manicures & Pedicures, Married Life, Married Sex, Matchmaking, Midorima Plays the Piano, Misunderstandings, Mother-Son Relationship, Natural Disasters, Old Friends, Parenthood, Piano, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexting, Sexual Content, Shopping Malls, Sisters, Texting, Tsundere Midorima
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2725688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmetropolis/pseuds/Jmetropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a family dinner, what could possibly go wrong?</p><p>(Part 4 of a series. You should probably read them in order)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oh, what a night

Midorima Shintarō was washing (of all things) strawberry sherbet out of Keiko-chan's hair while she was telling Daddy all about her exciting morning in the park with Papa and Kichi-chan. Her daddy had been on call on this glorious Saturday morning, so he had missed out on all the fun. Up until a few minutes ago, Kichi-chan had also been in the tub with her, but Papa had plucked him out when he started drinking the bathwater.

Like most children living in densely populated urban landscapes, Midorima Keiko and her brother went to the park, _often_. Takao would take the children almost daily on his way to run errands - errands that usually revolved around one Midorima Shintarō (Shin-chan always had a new bespoke shirt that needed to be picked up from the tailor's, a suit or tux that had to be dropped off at the dry cleaner's in preparation for a hospital function or other, or some hard-to-find special culinary delight he had to have for dinner).

Sometimes, if they were especially well behaved during these errands, Papa even bought the children ice cream. The children had ice cream, _often_. Papa had an excessively low threshold for "well behaved," (he was a pushover) and he wasn't a stickler for daily recommended dietary intake, the way Daddy was. But no more balloons. Papa drew the line at balloons. _Never again_. Despite outward appearances, he had _some_ self-preservation skills in him.

Takao had long ago learned to admire from afar the wisdom in Coach Nakatani's decision to limit Shin-chan to three special requests per day. He should be so lucky. Sometimes Shin-chan left him lengthy, detailed to-do lists on their kitchen counter in beautiful, perfect penmanship - the kind reserved for wedding invitations and birth announcements. Okasan had spent too much money on calligraphy lessons for Shin-chan to have stereotypical doctor's, chicken-scratch handwriting. Takao would sometimes find these little missives when he woke up in the morning and brewed his coffee. Depending on their length and level of difficulty, they would often resemble a scavenger hunt (if all the fun had been sucked out of it like a helium balloon). Takao shuddered at the thought of balloons.

Unlike most city children, Midorima Keiko and Midorima Kichiro lived in a home that was equipped with a private balcony (or _side terrace_ , as their realtor had billed it). On most days it was either too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy (or almost any combination of the four) to really enjoy it and even though it was safely enclosed on three sides by state-of-the-art, cyclone-resistant, tempered-glass railings, Shin-chan - _being the excessively paranoid father that he was_ \- preferred not to encourage too much playtime out there.

Consequently, it was the most underutilized area of their home - and that was saying something given that they were two adults and two very tiny children surrounded by an unseemly amount of square footage. In fact, no one had spent any significant time out there in the terrace since last summer when Kuroko Tetsuya had gotten himself locked out and failed to make himself noticeable to anyone including his big lug of a boyfriend - _for hours_ - during Midorima's ill-fated birthday bash ( _Promise me you'll never invite these people over again, Takao. Of course, Shin-chan,_ he'd placated, running a soothing hand over frazzled nerves and rumpled, verdant locks _._ Takao was especially good at making promises he had no intention of keeping).

The park on the other hand had the advantage of being safely on the ground - there was zero chance of anyone plunging anywhere - and had wide open spaces and there was soft grass for the children to chase each other to their little hearts' content. It was unrivaled fun, except for that one week when Grandma Midorima had rented a bounce house and had it installed in her front yard -- Grandma Midorima didn't play fair when it came to winning (bribing) the affections of her grandchildren.

Shintarō's parents had one of those rare homes that was not only sizable (it made their penthouse - the one that occupied the entire top floor of their building all by its lonesome - seem downright cozy by comparison), but came with an enormous, meticulously landscaped lot. In a city where space was a most precious commodity, it was like owning a unicorn -- fantastical and completely unheard of.

Shintarō had never thought much of it growing up (his home was his home and that was that and it wasn't like he'd had many friends growing up to compare living-arrangements with), until Takao had come along and pointed this out, right after he'd picked his jaw up off the floor. _Wow, Shin-chan you have a backyard?! It's enormous. Is that a gazebo?_ There may or may not have been some bribing of corrupt city planners when the lot that could've fit an entire apartment building was zoned for a single family home. Shintarō had no idea, this all went down before he'd been born. In any event, many years later, his children got to play in a bouncy house for that one week. And his husband developed a temporary nervous tick from having to spend so much time over at his in-laws.

Keiko-chan was telling her father all about the fascinating pigeon they'd passed on their way to the swing set. The woebegone bird had been lying on its side on the walkway and had squishy pink things crawling out of it ( _what were those things, daddy?_ ). She looked up at him from her pale pink visor. She was wearing one of those kiddie shampoo visors. A plastic, floppy hat with a large hole at the top so Daddy could wash her hair without getting water or ( _heaven forbid!_ ) baby shampoo in her eyes.

Shintarō hadn't even known such a contraption existed until he'd accidentally gotten suds in his delicate little sparrow's peepers for the first time and _boy_ was he sorry. Their little princess howled and howled some more at the offense. She was a bit of a drama queen ( _Wonder where she learned that from, huh Shin-chan?_ Takao had teased). The subsequent, epic wailing that had ensued had not only made Dr. Midorima worry that their nosy, insufferable downstairs neighbor (hateful woman) was going to call child services on them, but had also ensured that he was up late that night on the internet trying to find a solution to a problem that he hadn't known existed until that unfortunate bath time accident and one he very much wanted to prevent from happening ever again.

He quickly learned during those fretful, first few delirious months with their children that there was no shortage of products aimed at suckering desperate parents, like them, who had no idea what they were doing (the three different types of expensive strollers sitting in the closet of their genkan could attest to that). This one had at least come cheap and miracle of miracles, had actually been one of the few products they'd tried out that had actually worked like a charm. Best 300 yen Midorima had ever spent.

While Keiko-chan was recounting this repulsive little tale, her daddy was trying not to squirm. Guts and gore were tools of the trade in Shintarō's chosen profession and he had no qualms about being up to his elbows in human blood and plasma, and even more vile bodily fluids. This had been a common occurrence back in his residency days - the medical profession's version of college-style, frat-house hazing - when he had ER rotations. Not so much now. Neurosurgery was a much, much cleaner, more civilized branch of medicine. But when it came to his precious, precocious little pipit, Shin-chan would rather she not be exposed to the run-of-the-mill, urban sidewalk detritus of your typical megalopolis. _Really, what was Takao thinking?_

Shintarō could hear his husband and his son engaging in a tête-à-tête in the adjacent bedroom. Takao was mostly laughing, trying desperately to sound serious in his responses to Kichiro's monologue and failing miserably at it. While their son conversed in a mixture of baby babble and the few words he'd learned, Takao followed along with clear amusement in his voice.

Their home had more bedrooms than people and more bathrooms than bedrooms. In fact, all of the bedrooms had their own  _en suite_  (which was convenient for sleepovers Midorima wished were a more rare occurrence) and there were also two half baths for guests, one near the entrance and the other just off the living room. Despite the over abundance of bathrooms, it made little sense to bathe the children separately or in their respective rooms. They had to keep an eye on them constantly and it was impractical to lug around bath toys and other accouterments from one tub to the other.

Consequently, the bathroom they almost always used to bathe the children was the one in Kichiro's room. On a few occasions they'd tried using the whirlpool tub in their own bathroom, but it was much too big. The master bathroom was somewhat akin to a miniature spa (or a modern-day version of a Roman bath), complete with a sauna and a to-die-for walk-through shower with his-and-his rainfall showerheads and built-in jet sprays tailored to their respective heights. There was even a wall-mounted marble lion's head which spouted water from its mouth into a massive tub that dominated the room. Takao almost felt guilty getting down to business in there ( _Shin-chan, throw a towel over his head it's like he's staring at us_ ). _Almost_.

Kichiro's room had been decorated in a stylized duckling motif that was also carried into the bathroom décor. Their decorator had balked when Midorima had suggested frogs and Takao hawks for their nursery. She threw a few bones out to her well-heeled clients in the room's wall mural which included a single frog on a lily pad in the pond and some black squiggly line in the painted-on sky which Takao swore was a hawk and Midorima insisted was the artist's signature.

Midorima didn't need to see them to know that Takao was towel drying their infant on the changing table before beginning the all too familiar struggle of pulling a onesie over his head. The green-haired doctor had not only seen that familiar family tableau, he'd lived it many, many times. It was a commonplace scene that unfurled daily in the Midorima household (and _yes_ , it was the Midorima household, even if _some people_ were too stubborn to use their legal names) and its recurrence didn't detract one bit from how special a scene it was. Private, tender moments at home with his much beloved spouse and children were extremely dear to Shintarō, even if he had difficulty saying so.

Shintarō could remember the day they'd brought their children home like it was yesterday. It was a mid-September day, a day they now referred to as Family Day, which they will happily commemorate with a small dinner and cake for the first time in a few short weeks and yearly thereafter. They'd decided they would be upfront with the children about the adoption, when the time came. It wasn't like the biological impossibly of the alternative wouldn't make itself known sooner rather than later.

The children were still very young and the intricacies of how they came to be would continue to elude their cognitive functions for several more years. By then, Shintarō will have prepared himself with illustrated diagrams, charts and confusing medical jargon. But for now, it was easy to explain to them that Family Day was the day they made Daddy and Papa extremely happy because that was the day they became a family. The children were still very young, but Takao and Shintarō would take every opportunity to assure them daily that they are very much loved and so very much wanted.

Shintarō remembered that day - the day they brought their children home like it was yesterday because, apart from their wedding day and even more so than the day he graduated from medical school, it was the most important day of his life. It was the day that changed everything. The day their priorities shifted from "us" to "them." Shintarō remembered that day vividly because he was equal parts elated and terrified. He remembered obsessively checking the weather report (but not his horoscope, because he'd promised Takao).

He remembered that despite the mild forecast and although it wasn't a particularly cold September morning, he'd packed extra blankets and warm clothes for the car ride home. He remembered packing extra bottles and diapers and toys for the not so terribly long distance they needed to traverse, because he was extremely nervous and had no clue what to expect or what his children would expect from him. He was determined to provide for all their needs, from the very first day. He remembered worrying about things he'd never worried about before -- like having enough brake fluid even though he'd just had his oil changed and engine checked and owned an extremely safe, highly-rated automobile -- because his cargo had never been more precious.

Kichiro's room was the room they had referred to as the nursery back when they thought they were having _a_ child. Accidental children happened to hetero couples all the time. Shintarō's own sister-in-law was an "oopsie" baby. Accidental adoptions, however, were unheard of.

For couples like them, who'd decided to adopt their offspring, the jubilant arrival of the impending bundle of joy was preceded with much fanfare and meticulous planning. In their case, a team of lawyers, baby proofing experts, parenting and child safety instructors ( _yes_ , plural. _Don't you think this is overkill, Shin-chan?_ ), a lifestyle coach ( _seriously?_ ), and an interior decorator ( _okay. I'll admit. I didn't think she was necessary at first, but the nursery looks fabulous_ ) all paved the way, laid the groundwork, for when they finally brought their son home. Because it was a son, they'd agreed on adopting.

Kazunari and Shintarō had had many discussions, _many, many, many_ discussions before they'd decided that fatherhood was in the cards for them. And once they'd decided that, they'd also decided that they would be raising a little boy. Because they were both men and, although they both had little sisters, they hadn't the foggiest idea how to go about raising a little girl (it turned out they hadn't the foggiest idea about raising little boys either, but that surprise came later).

Shintarō who'd always prided himself in doing so, had done everything humanly possible to prepare himself for this momentous, life-changing event. He was in for a rude awakening because children were chaotic and rarely predictable, but that revelation came months later when they finally brought the children ( _yes_ , plural) home. All those months of preparation quickly went out their floor-to-ceiling, high-rise windows, when they learned from the adoption paperwork that their son had a sister and from the adoption agency director that she had not been adopted. That matter was settled instantly. There was no question about it. They were bringing a daughter home too. Because their son had a sister and there was no way they were separating the children, _their_ children.

Both Midorima and Takao had little sisters and they couldn't bear the thought of growing up without them. The decision was final and sent their lawyers into a wild scramble to finalize the legal legwork and their decorator into a mad frenzy to set up a second child's bedroom on such short notice, but they were able to formalize the adoption papers and more importantly, they were able to bring both their children home at the same time and without any delay.

The land line rang in the penthouse and Shintarō's heart pounded anxiously. It could have been any number of people. It could have been his mother-in-law asking what time they would be dropping off the children, or his own mother confirming tonight's dinner plans. It could have been Dr. Yamaguchi calling again to brag about running into another colleague who'd gotten an advance copy of Shintarō's paper.

It could have been any number of people calling for any number of reasons, but somehow Shintarō knew it was none of those people. Shintarō's sinking suspicions were confirmed moments later when Takao with a now dressed Kichiro in tow marched into the kids' bathroom. There was only one person who could make Takao's jaw draw up tight, turn his lips into a thin, horizontal line ( _Takao,_ who normally gave away smiles like they were free kittens). One look at his husband and Midorima Shintarō could tell he was unamused.

They traded off. Takao handed the cordless phone to his spouse and Midorima gave him a fresh from the tub Keiko-chan tightly wrapped in a fluffy yellow robe with a hood that was made to look like the bill of a duckling. Shintarō missed her instantly.

He didn't need to look at the caller ID on the screen to know who it was. 

###

Shintarō was at the piano playing the first part of Chopin's Funeral March. He was partial to Central European composers, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert. He was formally trained and preferred the classics, but really he could play pretty much anything.

Lately, he'd taken an interest in jazz and more modern pieces. He hadn't given a recital since he was a boy, but he played mini-concertos at home several times a week. He enjoyed it. He found the pieces moving and the activity relaxing and intellectually stimulating. It helped him think.

After a long day at work, he often unwound in front of the baby grand with a long complicated piece of classical music. (After the children were asleep, of course. When the children were awake, what Midorima was _allowed_ to play was a whole different matter. Their tiny tyrants only wanted Daddy to play nursery songs and even then, they often added their own notes, by joining in at disjointed, random intervals).

Every once in a while, however, he'd play a pop piece. The kind that polluted the airways in the preset channels of Takao's car stereo and clogged up his iPod with nonsense. Not because Midorima Shintarō particularly cared for the auto-tuned rubbish, the infernal racket, that passed for music these days (he found them tedious and their limited range didn't allow him to showcase his prodigious talent), but there they were making their appearance in his repertoire all because a certain inky-haired hawk loved them.

It was easy enough to play them. He didn't need the sheet music, he could play them by ear. And when he did, it was like the music beckoned Kazunari to his side from wherever he was in their spacious abode, it was like a siren song. Shintarō would pretend to be inconvenienced, put upon. He might even sigh in exasperation for good measure (as if this wasn't his intended design in playing the tune in the first place) and after all of those theatrics, he'd make room for the shadow to his light on the piano bench, the way he had on the court bench. And if he was really lucky, Takao might even sing along. Takao had a great singing voice, Midorima secretly adored it, though he'd rather volunteer at a pet shelter during mating season, than admit it aloud.

Of course he'd grouse whenever the sportswriter asked him to play a specific tune. He'd tell him this wasn't a lounge, he didn't take requests. But he'd do it anyway. Of course, he would. He'd do anything for this man; he was truly, madly, deeply in love with him. Not that he'd ever say such embarrassing things.

At the moment, Takao was running around the penthouse doing heaven knows what. He'd already opened the refrigerator door three times and had gone out to the genkan once before retreating to their bedroom to finish getting dressed.

They were waiting for Shintarō's parents to pick them up. The children were with their other set of grandparents, the sane ones. The ones Midorima actually trusted to take care of them.

Takao's parents had been on babysitting duty since early in the afternoon. The children were going with them to see a puppet show -- an early autumn revival of _Three Billy Goats Gruff_ \-- and stopping for some ice cream before spending the night at Takao's parents' house. Maybe if they were lucky Aunt Kazumi might even be home to read them a bedtime story; her social calendar had certainly opened up since she'd been unceremoniously dumped by her two-timing boyfriend. Her leisure-time engagements now vacillated between drunken nights out with her still single, on-the-prowl gal-pals and crying into a bowl of udon while wearing a cucumber and avocado mask and watching TV game shows sitting between her aging parents on the couch in the den, before turning in for the night. Moving back into the family home had been an adjustment for the lovelorn twenty-nine-year-old. Still, Aunt Kazumi's heart may have been broken into a thousand teeny tiny pieces the size of a speckle of glitter, but her skin had never looked better.

It was telling that Takao's old room at his parents' house was practically a second nursery filled with diapers, extra clothes, toys and blankets left behind from prior trips, whereas Midorima's parents were allowed the occasional _supervised_  visit with their grandchildren. Midorima's mother had once complained about it,  _Honestly, Shintarō. It's like you don't trust us._  The icy stare Midorima had given her had effectively ensured she didn't ask again.

Shintarō glanced at his wristwatch and then at a framed picture sitting on the end table not too far from the baby grand where he was situated.

The picture was inside a wooden frame shaped like a sailboat. It was a cheap frame, probably picked up at a Seiyu store near the one-hour photoshop within walking distance from his in-laws' house. It matched absolutely nothing in his tastefully and professionally decorated penthouse. In fact it clashed with its lofty surroundings.

There was nothing so plebeian, so gauche as a "nautical theme" in his home even if most of the views in his home were ocean views. His decorator would be horrified, in fact, she will be horrified when she comes over next week to show him leather swatches and to gossip about the incompetence of the new curator at the Museum of Modern Art (the recent exhibit was absolutely ghastly). Midorima's decorator had a discerning eye and a sharp tongue. They got along swimmingly. Whenever they got together they'd share tea and criticize their mutual acquaintances like a couple of gaggling hens. Takao had once referred to the pair of them as "mean girls."

Shintarō was thinking of buying Takao a new couch for his home office. Though the hawkeye's birthday was still months away, there had been an incident involving an unfastened sippy cup teeming with grape juice. Really, it was Takao's fault in the first place for having chosen a persimmon fabric. Maybe he would choose ebony for the new chesterfield.

While the frame itself was unremarkable, the picture inside was Shintarō's new favorite. It was taken by Aunt Kazumi on the last day of their recent summer vacation. The picture was of the four of them on the beach. Takao and Shintarō were wearing orange and black board shorts, respectively, and sitting crossed legged beside a lopsided sandcastle. The children were each standing in the triangular space created by their fathers' legs. Keiko and Kichiro were wearing matching sailor suits and perhaps that was where Aunt Kazumi had gotten the idea for the frame.

Kichiro had his hand in his mouth, but he was smiling around it, a small cat toy was safely clutched in the other. The fact that the four of them were actually looking at the camera for a change, was more than Shintarō could've asked for. Takao was propping their infant son up, a hand under each auxiliary. Tiny bare toes were obscured by Takao's shin, but Midorima remembered they were curled up, grasping the damp sand beneath them.

Takao was leaning against Midorima's bicep and his smile was one of Shintarō's favorite things about the photo. He would almost describe it as shy and demure in that it looked like Takao was trying to hide it behind Shintarō's arm, but of course anyone who knew the hawkeye (or even spent two minutes in his vicinity) knew there wasn't a shy and demure bone in his body.

Keiko-chan was standing in front of her Daddy who had angled her body so that her head was blocking the purple lovebite Shintarō knew he was sporting at the time - a souvenir given to him by his not-so-shy-and-demure husband. Her smile was nothing short of brilliant. His little princess was hamming it up for the camera, a trait she could've only learned from her Papa.

Thanks to an unsightly sunburn, Shintarō looked like he was impersonating a lobster in the picture, but he was smiling. The smile on his lips was a bit guarded, a bit cautious. Still, he looked happy and Shintarō knew he still was.

He also knew that this treasured memento and its humble frame would remain in their spot on the side table for years to come.  

Finally, curiosity got the better of Midorima Shintarō. "Takao. What are you doing?"

"Can't find my mobile."

"Did you try calling it?" 

Takao shot him a glare that could only mean one thing --  _of course I did, obviously._ "The battery's dead," he responded and resumed looking underneath the seat cushions.

* * *

  **AN1:** Thank you guys for the encouragement in adding a fourth story. Like all the other stories in this series, the title comes from a Beatles song. I've decided to use chapter titles for this one. I borrowed them from the Four Seasons. I think this one will be ~~three~~   ~~four~~ ~~five~~ six chapters long. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 **AN2:** So, the thing that inspired this little ficlet is a snippet from an interview where Shin-chan admits to occasionally playing pop songs on the piano.

 

> _Q7: Other than that, Midorima-kun is good at the piano. What is your repertory?_
> 
> _Midorima: Many famous classic pieces, but recently, to take a breather, there are also jazz and pop pieces._

I can only imagine who/what the catalyst was for learning those pop songs in the first place. You can read the whole interview [here](http://chippokenabokura.tumblr.com/post/105044185388/kuro-fes-interviews-midorima-shintarou). Thank you so much [Chippokenabokura](http://chippokenabokura.tumblr.com) for translating it. If you haven't heard it, [Chopin's Funeral March](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47qUk8B1A3s) is kind of pretty, I think. 


	2. As I recall, it ended much too soon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin-chan often said Takao had no shame. But that statement was not entirely correct. Takao had found his shame last year on Shin-chan's birthday.

Takao tried to smile and make extra eye contact with the beleaguered waiter. He thanked the man profusely when he brought him his second glass of scotch. The way this night was going, he should've ordered the whole bottle and offered to split it with the poor guy. They could both use a stiff drink.

They lived in a city where dining had been elevated to an art form and where in some bespangled restaurants a single night's meal could cost as much as a used car, as much as Takao's dilapidated former hatchback had cost. But that didn't guarantee that your meal wouldn't come with "extras" you didn't order, if you pissed off the wrong people.

The hawkeye didn't _want_ to be lumped in with the overbearing, impossible to please man who'd just sent back his sashimi for the third time. Takao was sure the next batch would come with a footprint - no doubt the busboys were out back in the alley waiting to stomp on it right now. He _really_ didn't want to be at this table. His father-in-law pulled this shit every time they ate out. He even did it at home too. Throwing a tantrum that would make a cranky, sleep-deprived Kichiro proud.

Shintarō's boyhood home was run by what to Takao seemed like elves. The place was as spotless as a museum (and just as sterile and uninviting), but you never caught anyone in the act, never saw anyone actually doing the cleaning. Tea was served promptly in the gazebo, the ikebana in the front room was changed daily, place settings miraculous appeared in the dining room without anyone catching so much as a peek of a white glove or a frilly bonnet. The only time any servants materialized was to serve the food. And when that task was completed -- _poof_ , they'd disappear into the invisible realm they seemed to reside in like the mythical fairies in Keiko-chan's books. 

It was the kind of help one could hire if one were willing to shell out a lot of yen for it. To this day, Takao was unsure of how many people were actually employed beneath the indigo tiles of the enormous kawara roof of that stately home. Outside of mealtimes, he'd only ever caught fleeting glances of them.

Still, the elder Dr. Midorima's antics could break down the defenses of even the most highly trained, most polished, most professional domestic employee. Shortly after he'd been released from his extended hospital stay following his heart attack, Dr. Midorima had been especially vicious. In the first few weeks of his lengthy convalescence, he'd been abominable to everyone, to his wife, his children, his nurses and especially his employees. It just so happened one evening that the proud former heart surgeon had behaved so appallingly, so outrageously churlish, that he'd made one of the maids quit in the middle of supper, but not before she'd told him off. Takao and Shin-chan had been at the table to witness it (they were at Shintarō's parents often in those first fragile few weeks; it was like Shin-chan was afraid to leave his father's side). It made their normally uncomfortable, compulsory family dinners even more awkward. The telling off part had been awesome, though. It had almost made Takao glad to be there. _Almost_.

Maybe if he took the waiter aside and disowned them ( _Who? These people? I've never seen them before in my life. The maître d' just happened to sit me down at this table. Really. I don't know any of them. Especially not that scowling, green-haired old guy who's been giving you a hard time_ ), those oysters he'd ordered would come out unscathed.

Other than the increasingly dire food situation, they were supposed to be in a festive mood tonight. This week, Shintarō had submitted his paper for peer review. It would be months before that process was completed and then if everything went as expected, his work would be published in a prominent medical journal. It was a major professional milestone and one the Midorima family was out celebrating, and rightfully so. Takao couldn't have been more proud of his brilliant husband. He'd read the thing and even though he couldn't pronounce, much less understand, every third word in the paper, even he knew it was top notch work. And he wasn't the only one.

Shin-chan's boss couldn't stop praising him for it when he came over for dinner the other night. He said he'd already gloated to his colleagues at lesser institutions. He seemed to have taken great pleasure in rubbing their noses in it (Takao thought that Dr. Yamaguchi's wife must not be a very good cook or terrible company because the man sure liked to invite himself over for dinner, a lot). Even Shin-chan's father, who was a bag of dicks on the best of days, had said it was _excellent work, Shintarō_ and that stony-faced man was not easily impressed, as the poor besieged waiters who were falling over themselves trying desperately to appease him could attest to.

There they all were enjoying a night out -- looking for all the world like a completely normal, functioning family. Or at least they had been in the few minutes it took to valet the car, take the elevator up and walk through the double doors of the top floor restaurant. The façade cracked almost instantly when they reached the waiting area and the youngest of their dining group, Shintarō's little sister, was noticeably absent.

 _Oh well._ At least the car ride had been surprisingly productive. He'd called his mother and located his missing phone. It had been in one of the side pockets of his messenger-bag-turned-diaper bag. He'd left it behind when they'd dropped off the children at his parents.

Shuzuko's absence was unexpected and unprecedented. This was not, by any means typical behavior. It just wasn't like her to be late, to anything. She didn't keep people waiting, especially her parents. Unlike her brother, she was polite, considerate, and obedient to a fault.

Shuzuko was a people pleaser by nature and almost since the day she was born, she was a disappointment to her parents, her mother especially. She was not a disappointment in any true sense of the word. The girl was any  _normal_ parent's dream. Like her brother before her, she'd finished first in her class in every grade. She had been captain of the girls' high school basketball team and was a musical prodigy, a violin virtuoso whose concertos had moved audiences to tears. Takao could attest to that first hand. She was tall and beautiful to boot. She was someone who could've pursued a modeling career, if she'd had any interest and if her parents' didn't think such a fatuous career choice was beyond consideration and below her station in life.

Even so, in her parents' eyes, Shuzuko was a failure -- or more accurately, a failed experiment in happy homemaking. The really important thing to remember was that Shin-chan's parents were really fucked-up. There was no pussyfooting around it. That was just how they were. Takao had learned this lesson the hard way. It was easier to just accept the fact his husband's family was nuts, and move on.

 _Oh fuck it._ His family, _okay_? There, he'd said it. Those two whackadoos were actually _his_ relatives now and would be for the rest of their natural lives. _Thanks a lot, Shin-chan._ Like it or not (not, definitely not), he was stuck with both of them. And this was the bowl of crazy he was trying to sanely raise his own children in.

How these two monumentally flawed individuals have managed to produce such exceptionally talented and accomplished offspring was beyond the hawkeye's level of comprehension. After all, he had always been just an average student, an average son, and happily so. Dr. and Mrs. Midorima had somehow cultivated a fierce loyalty in their remarkable children which was as astounding as it was unearned.

The thing was, Sazuna had had lofty goals for her daughter, even in utero. And when a newborn babe couldn't fix the unholy alliance that was her troubled marriage, she was quickly handed off to the nearest au pair. Takao would wager that if you'd asked Sazuna what Shuzuko's first words were, she'd be hard pressed for a response.

Fifteen minutes later and _Midorima, party of six_ was still very much a foursome. The patriarch of this lovely brood was not known for his patience. The maître d' who moments earlier had committed the grave offense of saying, "I'm sorry, Sir. But we cannot sit you until everyone in your party is here," had quickly learned to sing a different tune. The look of unabashed contempt on Dr. Midorima, Sr.'s face reminded Takao of a bull angrily challenging a matador. He could just imagine the steam coming out of each flared nostril, hoof dragging across the dirt in preparation for a charge.

Apparently wary of getting gored, the man in the smartly pressed tuxedo that to Takao was reminiscent of the penguins at the zoo, said, "Right this way, Sir." And as a means to further calm the affronted Taurus added, "We have a lovely Riesling this evening. May I interest you in the wine list?"

They were led to the middle of the restaurant and seated at a large, round table whose white table cloth had been bleached and pressed to within an inch of its life. A small, ornate table lamp at the center illuminated the space, casting an intimate, romantic glow.

Thirty minutes later they had ordered appetizers and Takao was being excessively nice to the waiters, trying to placate them for his father-in-law's ill temper. Meanwhile, his mother-in-law was droning on and on about nonsense. He was careful to nod in all the appropriate spots and tried to appear sympathetic as she spun her tale of woe, bemoaning the struggles of being an empty nester.

Shuzuko had moved out of the family home when she'd started college. Shintarō had done the same thing at her age. Takao was frankly surprised his in-laws had even noticed a difference. They weren't exactly the world's most involved or attentive parents. Sometimes, when things got really surreal, he felt like they were pantomiming normal people's emotions.

Shuzuko had started uni a semester ago. She'd left the family home and moved in with two of her girlfriends, equally well-to-do young ladies whose parents all ran in the same social circle. There was just no way Sazuna was this broken up about it now. There was something more to this story. Takao was patiently waiting it out.

"The thing is. He's a nice boy. I just don't think he's capable of making her happy. I'm afraid it just isn't going to work out, in the long run." _Ah, there it was_. That was what this misplaced modicum of maternal concern was really about. "I mean, he's got such a sensitive stomach. Frankly, it's quite troublesome."

Matsumoto Haruki was Shuzuko's beau, her first ever boyfriend. He was an affable chap, though a bit weak chinned and doughy in the middle. He was about Kagami's height, but of a stockier build. Takao supposed he could see the appeal in that he had kind eyes and was an easy going guy.

Shuzuko apparently did not suffer from an Electra complex. Her boyfriend and her father were as different as night and day. Consequently, Takao was certain that Matsumoto Haruki was not long for this family. This was unfortunate for Shuzuko because she was clearly smitten with him. Smitten enough to introduce him to her family and that was where their troubles lied.

Haruki preferred to go by the more effeminate moniker "Haru," an appellation more commonly given to the fairer sex. The name meant spring and Haru really lived up to it. He was as gentle as a spring breeze. It was a perceived weakness, a personality defect that did not ingratiate him to his girlfriend's parents.

The reason he hadn't been dismissed outright was that Haru came from a respectable family, meaning he was loaded. His father was a hotelier, the owner of a well-known, mid-priced chain of properties up and down the island and abroad. By all rights, Haru could properly be referred to as a young master, a princeling, except he wasn't a dick about it.

He'd been educated in Switzerland, had spent all of his formative years there and had recently emigrated back home to attend uni. This was probably why he hadn't been implanted with that chip that made guys like Akashi behave like they owned the place, like domineering mini-emperors who treated everyone else as lowly subjects. Unexpected kindness aside, Haru would've probably been the kind of guy Shuzuko's parents would've wanted her to date, except she'd found him herself during orientation on the first day of uni.

Haru was of average intelligence. The kind of guy you'd expect to find at the university Takao had attended, not at the Midorima family alma mater. Takao suspected Haru had been admitted into the most prestigious university in the country on legacy alone, but the guy was so nice, it was hard to resent him for it. Naturally, he wasn't in any of Shuzuko's classes. Then again, few people had the mental acumen and the sheer force of willpower and determination that seemed to propel the Midorima children to study like fiends. Maybe it was because he'd lived with Shin-chan during his uni days, had witnessed the obsession with getting top marks firsthand, but Takao felt he could relate to poor Haru who just wanted to spend time with his overachieving girlfriend.  

Shin-chan had been surprisingly ambivalent about his little sister's first forays into the titillating world of adult relationships. Takao had expected more of a ruckus, a reaction (or overreaction, really) from her excessively overprotective, much older brother.

The nice thing about Kazunari and Kazumi being practically the same age (girls did mature faster than boys, as she was so apt to remind him) was that they'd each embarked on their own hormone fueled, corporeal explorations of the opposite sex (or in Takao's case, both sexes) at much the same time. So that while Kazumi was off doing whatever it was she was doing, Takao had been happily preoccupied with removing sports tape from long, graceful fingers and memorizing every freckle on Shin-chan's celestial body. Consequently, he'd been too busy to pay her any heed.

Shin-chan did not have the luxury of being otherwise distracted when his little sister finally discovered boys. Consequently, Takao had expected intense, vociferous disapproval, extends periods of brooding and finally defeated moping from his tsundere. But for the most part, Shin-chan seemed not to care one way or the other, seemed to have no opinion concerning his little sister's nascent romantic entanglement and the relationship bloomed for a time without much input from the former ace. That is, until Takao unwittingly removed blinders he hadn't known Shin-chan was wearing.

It had happened the week leading up to Valentine's Day to be precise. They had both been in their kitchen discussing their options when Midorima reached for the phone to call his little sister. He had wanted to ask her if she could babysit her niece and nephew for the upcoming auspicious occasion. 

Takao had reached over, taken the receiver mid-dial from his inconsiderate husband's hand ( _Honestly, Shin-chan. Could you be more thoughtless?_ ). The hawkeye had pragmatically pointed out that surely the happy couple would have amorous plans of their own that evening, plans that would likely extend into the following morning. Shintarō had been affronted by the mere suggestion. If he were his mother, he'd be clutching pearls.  _Don't be preposterous, Takao. She's just a child. Practically a baby. She has no interest in, in . . . **that** , _Takao's favorite doctor had sputtered. His hands had been gesticulated wildly as his mind was trying with some difficulty to wrap itself around that startling notion, his recently brewed oolong sloshing dangerously over the sides of the delicate, porcelain tea cup he'd been holding.

Evidently Midorima Shintarō still viewed his "baby" sister as that green-eyed little sprite who wore her hair in pigtails and surreptitiously sucked her thumb and cried for her onii-chan when she woke up spooked in the middle of the night. It wasn't until Takao had unintentionally disabused his husband of that soothing image -- _Of course that's what they're doing, Shin-chan. She's a university student. Remember what we were like at uni?_ \-- that Shintarō developed an immediate, visceral, and fervent dislike of the boyfriend and his lecherous ways. It was the kind of intense hatred most people reserved for the dregs of society.

"-- I think it would be a nice vacation to take as a family." Sazuna had moved on to less controversial topics. Namely, that Bengalese river cruise she and her husband had taken in July. This luxury river cruise idea had spread among her hoity-toity society friends faster than neurasthenia during the Meiji period. The idea was to chart your own course and sail down whatever impoverished Southeast Asian country had the misfortune of attracting the attention of these prosperous pilgrims.

"You just don't get that kind of close interaction with the locals, immerse yourself in the culture on those large commercial liners," she'd said by way of explanation and Takao had wondered what kind of contact Sazuna had had with anyone outside an upscale shopping mall.

He suspected the appeal had more to do with showing that you had the means to do it, rather than any desire to broaden one's cultural horizons. After all, most people could scrounge up enough savings to go on a cruise, but very few could hire their own yacht and crew.

Takao smiled politely at his mother-in-law's invitation. He'd rather jump overboard and take his chances swimming ashore in crocodile infested waters, than be trapped an entire week with the pair of them. He had no intentions of joining Dr. and Mrs. Dysfunctional on the _S.S. Social Disparity_ , or whatever luxury motor yacht she'd planned on chartering for that unhappy excursion.

Sazuna excused herself to go powder her nose and to check on Shuzuko. Shin-chan had offered to escort his mother and take the opportunity to check in on the children. Takao, not wanting to be left behind to make awkward small talk with the ogre at the table, snatched the phone from Midorima's hand and volunteered to do it himself. 

The restaurant was the kind of fancy establishment which simply would not allow its patrons to use cellphones at the table. In fact, they were supposed to have checked them in with their coats, but Shintarō, being a doctor, had been granted a special dispensation.

Takao was annoyed to see his husband's phone had a missed call and a text message from Akashi, but he resisted the temptation to read the text or listen to the voicemail he'd left behind. Neither of these things had been on Shintarō's phone when Takao had used it in the car to call his mother.  

Akashi was in town, that much he'd gathered from his earlier phone call to their home when they'd been bathing the kids. The guy had a way of getting under Takao's skin. He resented the hell out of the fact that the Kiseki no Sedai's former captain called his husband by his first name. Of course, he couldn't very well ask him to stop because then Akashi would know it bothered him and he might even continue to do it anyway. He'd always been a dick who got off on power plays.

Lots of things about Akashi bothered him. Like the fact that Takao's in-laws seemed to love him. Akashi was from the same city as Shin-chan's mother so he always came bearing gifts of the local delicacies. And he played shogi with Shin-chan's dad on occasion. Takao hated that his husband had downloaded that Shogi with Friends app (the lone game app on his mobile) just so he could play with Akashi and they often chatted on it. He especially hated the fact that he had no idea what Akashi was up to. He was so secretive about everything, Takao didn't even know if the guy was dating anyone, if he had _ever_ dated anyone. Or what his intentions were towards his husband.

Takao spoke to his sister briefly. The children had been read a story and put to bed an hour ago and she was watching TV with mom and dad. He had to get her out of this funk she was in.   

By the time he and Sazuna returned to the table the oysters he'd ordered had arrived and an apologetic Shuzuko was being harangued by her irate father. She looked upset and a bit peaky. As she took her seat next to her husband, Sazuna gestured to the empty chair beside her daughter. "Shuzuko, dear. Where is Haruki-kun?"

"He's not feeling well," she said meekly, avoiding her mother's inquisitive gaze.

"I hope it's not serious."

"He's been having stomach issues. He apologizes for the inconvenience."

"Again? He should really see someone about that. Have it checked out." She turned to her husband, "Darling, what is the name of that friend of yours, that gastroenterologist?"

"Fukushima."

"No, darling. The other one. The one you used to play golf with."

"Hori."

"That's the one," Sazuna said seemingly satisfied. "There you go. You should have him make an appointment with Dr. Hori," she said to her daughter. "Tell him to say your father sent him. He'll see him right away."

Shuzuko muttered something under her breath.

"What's that dear?" her mother said. "Speak up. I'm having trouble hearing you over the din of the other tables."

Shuzuko stared intently at the plain white table cloth in front of her, as if it was comprised of the most interesting pattern. "There's nothing wrong with Haru's stomach. He just gets uncomfortable eating with you and father."

Sazuna looked surprised. "Why, that's preposterous, dear."

"It's not preposterous. He says you make his nervous. You make his stomach hurt."

"Well, I --"

"He says he's not doing it anymore." Apparently the big lug had a backbone underneath all that fluff.

Takao dropped his oyster fork on the floor. It was somewhere in the vicinity of the jaw he'd also dropped. He made bulging eyes at his husband to do something, anything before this got out of hand.

"Shuzuko --" Shin-chan interjected weakly, before his father cut him off.

"Shuzuko. I don't want you seeing this boy anymore. He is disrespectful."

The young woman was shaking like a leaf. Takao thought she was going to cry, but he was wrong. She was furious.

"No." she said defiantly.

Dr. Midorima, who ruled his family like an autocrat, wasn't expecting his daughter to buck him. "Shuzuko. I do not know what's gotten into you, but you will apologize to your mother and I this instant." Dr. Midorima was raising his voice along with the blood pressure of everyone at the table. "You will not see this discourteous boy again. That's final."

"No." she said, showing no signs of backing down the confrontation. "I am not breaking up with him. Just because you don't like him, doesn't mean --"

"Shuzuko -" her father's tone brooked no argument.

The hairs on the back of Takao's neck were standing straight up. Normally he'd be all for Shuzuko exerting herself, showing some independent thought and free will where her parents were concerned, but they were out in public and their voices along with their tempers were escalating in volume. This little spectacle was garnering the attentions of the other diners. Takao kicked his husband's long leg under the table, once again spurring him to intervene before things got out of hand.

"Shuzuko." Shintarō jumped into the frying pan. "I think Father is right."

Takao slapped himself in the face. That was not what he'd wanted Shin-chan to say. His husband was fanning the flames; making it worse. He'd picked the absolute worst moment to go into overprotective big brother mode.

To Takao's horror, Shintarō continued to chime in. Shintarō chose this moment to voice his disapproval of the lovelorn suitor whose absence at dinner had ignited a powder keg. Poor Haru's ears were surely glowing as red as embers by now given the number of times his name had been invoked while barbs were thrown across the table like missiles at this unhappy gathering.

"What?!" Incensed and betrayed, Shuzuko turned her anger towards her mutinous brother. She in turn chose this exact moment to have an epic meltdown that was 19 years in the making. 

"You're too young. He's not suitable for you. He --" _He wants to take you to bed. Do unspeakable things to you_ , that was Shin-chan's real objection.

"Ha!" She said incredulously. "You are an enormous hypocrite. How dare you say I listen to Father, when you did no such thing. If Father had had his way, you wouldn't have Kazunari." Takao sank low in his seat, hoping to avoid being dragged into this mess.

"That's different."

"How? How is that different?!"

If Shintarō answered that question, Takao didn't get to hear it because everyone was talking over each other - Father, Mother, Sister and Brother were all in on the act.

Of course, this family pow wow could not go on unnoticed. As was entirely expected, the maître d'hôtel paid their table a little visit.

"Pardon me, Sir." The man politely addressed the patriarch of this unhappy family. "But I'm afraid you are disturbing the other guests." He ignored Dr. Midorima's look of disdain and continued. "I'm going to have to ask you and your family to vacate the premises."

Offended to the core by the impertinence of this, this glorified _waiter_ and unaccustomed to such shoddy, ill-treatment, Dr. Midorima, Sr. once again donned the mannerisms of a raging bull. _How dare this man ask_ _his family to leave. Did he even know who he was? The nerve._ This time however, the maître d' turned matador was prepared to meet him head on, raised a defiant eyebrow and waived his red cape.

"Out. Out, the lot of you. Please do not come again."

###

Takao could not say that this was the most humiliating experience involving Shin-chan's parents. _No._ That lovely distinction took place last year on Shin-chan's birthday, of course.

Takao had been a bit gun-shy about texting Shin-chan ever since _The Incident_. It was not something he liked to recall at all and whenever it arose in his thoughts entirely unbidden, he still cringed about it. 

It was the birthday before they'd had children and so Takao had had the luxury of taking his time getting ready for work in the mornings, of fluffing up a bit and sending his beloved a sneak peek of his birthday present before heading to the office.

 _Did you like my text, Shin-chan?_ He'd prompted during his lunch break when he hadn't heard a peep from the birthday boy.

_What text?_

_Shin-chan . . . You're fucking with me right?_

In the entire time they'd known each other, Midorima Shintarō had "fucked" with Takao exactly never. Not in the way Takao had meant it in that moment of sheer, unmitigated panic. (If Takao had been speaking literally, they were at it all the time, like lusty rabbits, early and often. Especially back then, in those halcyon days before the kids came on long and forced time and place parameters upon them). Practical jokes, pranks, and all manner of tomfoolery were exclusively the domain of one Takao Kazunari.

_Takao, how often do I joke? What are you --_

Before his befuddled husband could finish asking, Takao had started choking on his tongue. It sounded like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.  _Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck_ , he had tried to exclaim. But it had sounded more like, _kuh, kuh, kuh_.

Takao may have been having an aneurysm.

Then, there was a brief pause in the conversation - if you could call it that - during which Takao had stared at the phone in his hand in disbelief, like he was holding an alien life form, before proceeding to frantically scroll down his sent texts (while his heart unhelpfully jackhammered in his throat) to see who had been the unlucky recipient of his not so little love missive, jutting proudly and standing at full attention.

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!_

Takao would be the first to admit that when this whole sexting craze came onto the scene, he'd been an early, enthusiastic adaptor. And he may have gone a _wee_ bit overboard. Though maybe "sexting" was not the right word for it.

Could you call it sexting when the other party mostly ignored your texts? Or fired back with such titillating responses as _I'm in the middle of a consultation, Takao_ , or _You misspelled succulent. Honestly, Takao. If you're going to pollute the satellite networks with this filth, you could at least proof read._

Kazunari could've feigned innocence. A tactic he had employed plenty of times with varying degrees of success to get out of trouble -- _You found egg shells in the garbage disposal, Shin-chan? Huh. Imagine that_ , or _I don't hear anyone coming, we should keep going_ (uttered moments before the janitor opened the broom closet and at that point the poor man should've been looking for the brain bleach because he got an eyeful -- or assfull -- of the young doctor who worked on his floor).

Suffice it to say that it would not have been the first time Takao Kazunari had played dumb to get out of a sticky situation. He could've clung to plausible deniability like a drowning man clung to a life raft. It would've all been fine really, if the picture hadn't come attached to his phone number.

And even then he could've claimed he'd lost his phone, had it stolen at an izakaya on his way home from work (back when Takao worked full time, he'd often stop by these places for a beer or unhealthy snack with his coworkers because Shin-chan rarely came home before seven), or left it behind in a cab in Akasaka and found by a mischievous, though admittedly well-proportioned stranger.

The hawkeye was not as generously hung as one Midorima Shintarō, but he could certainly hold his own, so to speak. Seriously, Shin-chan had been born with so many natural attributes it was unfair. Shintarō's allotted lot was an embarrassment of riches, it was so bountiful Takao could snuggle with it and often did, depending on Shin-chan's mood ( _Takao, get off of me. I have to pee_ ). It was hard letting go at times, _erm_ so to speak.

He could've claimed any number of things if he hadn't decided to also tie a green bow to his, _um_ . . . _er_ , package with a gift tag that read, _Happy Birthday Day, Shin-chan_. And really, there was only one person on the planet who called Shin-chan Shin-chan.

And it didn't stop there. _Oh no_ , it wasn't enough that Takao had literally tied a bow to it. There was also a saucy little caption that went along with this high resolution, veiny close-up, which did not bear repeating. It was something along the lines of what Shintarō could expect to do his "present" when he got home. A suggestion so vile, so filthy, it would've made an experienced madam or the cleanup crew at a love hotel blush.

So _yes_. Takao Kazunari had joined the ranks of unenviable souls who've had the misfortune of sending a sext message to the wrong person. Shin-chan often said that Takao had no shame. And most of the time, he would've been right. Takao and his conscience were only distant acquaintances. But he found it that fateful day, last year on Shin-chan's birthday.

And if sending a dick pic -- _correction_ , a be-ribboned dick pic -- to your mother-in-law (your very prissy mother-in-law) didn't sour you on the idea of sexting for life, you're much braver than one Takao Kazunari.

Takao was glad he broke the unhappy news to Shin-chan over the phone, instead of in person. _You sent what to my mother?!_ ** _My_** ** _mother?_** _As in the woman who birthed me? You sent a picture of your erect -- Have you met my mother?! Have you lost your mind?!_

Shin-chan had had a hard time (so to speak) grasping the concept of what Takao had done. Those cat-coughing noises Takao had made before were nothing compared to the incensed inhuman wails Shin-chan was bellowing then. They would have made a banshee proud. Takao was worried Shin-chan would do permanent damage to his larynx or to Takao's eardrums.

Needless to say, a dick-pic-sent-to-his-mother had been hands down, by far, without a doubt, the absolute _worst_ birthday present Midorima Shintarō had ever received from anyone, _ever_. _Really Takao, you shouldn't have._

When Shin-chan got home that night, he gave Takao the dirtiest, unhappiest sourpuss look, as if the guy had insulted his mother. Well, to be fair, he'd kinda, sorta done just that.

Kazunari had hoped against hope for shotty cell phone service. He'd hoped his mother-in-law had gotten just the text (as damning as those words were; the picture was worth a thousand of them) or at the very least, had gotten an indecipherable, grainy image. But he'd been unlucky on both counts.

She'd gotten his message alright, loud and clear, every last centimeter of it and that night he and Shintarō had both gotten an earful. He figured that that was not the best time to tell her he'd also burned the highly flammable, antique silk napkins she'd lent him for Shin-chan's shindig.

It was months before Takao could meet his mother-in-law's eyes again without either of them blushing.

The car ride home from the restaurant was an incredibly uncomfortable affair, notwithstanding the supple leather seats, the customizable, temperature controlled cabin, and hydraulic, fully active suspension.

For the most part the four unlucky inhabitants of the late model luxury sedan were pensive - as somber as mourners at a wake, each quietly contemplating the calamitous course of conduct that had unfurled at the upscale eatery.

The silence inside the sound-muffled cabin was broken every once in a while by an occasional snuffle or an indignant, affronted huff by an insulted Sazuna whose considerable pride had been sorely wounded. These stray little noises were sometimes accompanied by self-righteous grumblings, things like, "Well, I've never been so mistreated in my life."

Fifteen minutes later, Sazuna was apparently still getting things off her chest. "I don't care how many Michelin stars they have, I'm never setting foot in that disgraceful establishment again. The service was incredibly rude."

Takao bit his lip to avoid the temptation of helpfully pointing out that even if they'd wanted to, they weren't actually allowed to set foot in that 'disgraceful' establishment again. They'd been thrown out like the trash at the end of the night.

Forgotten in all this, of course, was poor Shuzuko who'd suffered enough for one evening and decided to cut her losses. She'd at least had the foresight to refuse a ride home from her father and hailed her own cab. _Thank you very much_. Takao wish he'd been so lucky.

Someone as naturally loud and boisterous as Takao could not credibly claim that _he'd_ never been thrown out of an alimentary establishment before. He wasn't proud of it, but more than once (okay, more times than he had fingers) the Shūtoku team had celebrated a little too loudly and been kicked out of an izakaya or some mom and pop noodle shop that catered to students with light wallets and hungry stomachs.

But this, this was something else entirely. He felt fully justified in categorizing this as an entirely new experience, a new low, a world-class dining debacle. Somehow being thrown out because other people's parents and their children were behaving like toddlers was much more embarrassing. 

As if last year's prick pic hadn't been embarrassing enough, Takao could add tonight's little culinary catastrophe to life's humiliating, cringe-inducing moments.


	3. Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a ridiculous choice. It was like Takao had asked him to choose which one of his limbs he'd like to keep. No matter which one he chose, the outcome would still be terrible, and painful. 
> 
> In every scenario he was doomed. At the same time, they couldn't stay out here forever. The sun would come up soon enough and then they'd be those two guys standing out there on their balcony. They were going to make the six o'clock news this time for sure.

Shin-chan's dad had been evidently eager to put this evening to bed. He barely came to a rolling stop at the grassy curb just outside their building. _Porte-cochère_ be damned. He was getting the hell out of there and all but flung them through the car door. If Shintarō's father were the type of person who "peeled out" he would've done so, judging by how quickly he hit the accelerator and hightailed it out of there.

This was more than fine with Takao, of course, who'd spent the better part of the car ride back to the penthouse concocting plausible scenarios for why they couldn't invite Shintarō's parents up for tea. Unfortunately, that's where his short string of good luck ended.

They were dropped off directly in front of their downstairs neighbor, whose dogs were watering the manicured hedge just outside the building.

Owning the lone unit at the building's summit meant they had _a lot_ of downstairs neighbors. _Every_ neighbor was a downstairs neighbor. But this was the one they both loathed.

As with most things pertaining to their daily lives, Takao got the brunt of it because he spent more time at home. Shintarō left the house at such an unholy hour, he rarely saw anyone. But Takao ran into this woman in all the common areas -- the lobby, the mail room, the parking garage, on the walkway along the marina while pushing the stroller, and most of all he got cornered by her in the elevator where he was a captive audience. 

He couldn't tell if she had a prurient interest in what to her was an exotic living arrangement, or if she was simply remarkably ignorant coupled with a profound lack of tact. Regardless of her motives, Takao found her incredibly annoying and tried to avoid her at all costs.

If he had to guess, Takao would say their neighbor was around his own parents' age - Shintarō's father being older than and Shintarō's mother being much younger than this woman.  

She had three grown children of her own. From what she'd told him, they were all close in age with the oldest being around Takao and Shintarō's age. He didn't know if they were estranged from their mother or if they just didn't visit often, but he'd never seen them.

Her husband had taken the easy way out. He'd choked on a chicken bone and croaked years before Takao and Shin-chan had moved into the building. The dearly departed husband had been considerate enough to leave behind a cluster of local radio stations -- not the cool ones that played the latest and greatest, up-to-the-minute J-pop tunes Takao adored, but the really boring ones that played traditional and classical music, the kind Shin-chan and Shin-chan's parents listened to.

They were the kinds of snoozy and snooty stations Shin-chan had preset into his car stereo. Takao loved messing with Shin-chan's settings to no end. It drove Midorima insane and playing practical jokes on his light had never quite lost its luster.

Owning a bunch of radio stations had ensured that their neighbor didn't need a job. Most of their neighbors didn't need jobs, Takao had noticed. It wasn't like people their age could afford to live where they lived and the people that could, tended to be like Shin-chan's parents, wheel heeled, well-connected, and independently wealthy.

Not having a job or a family that liked her enough to visit, freed up any possible constraints on their neighbor's time and allowed her to roam the halls of the building at any time of the day or night like a moribund apparition, striking terror in the hearts of all who encountered her. Shintarō said this was exactly the sort of nuisance their realtor should have warned them about.

 _When did you and your partner decide you'd be the wife?_ She'd once asked, shortly after they'd returned from their honeymoon.

_Excuse me?_

_You know. 'Wear the skirt' in the relationship, as the kids say these days._

Takao didn't know any "kids" who said things like that.  _W_ _e both wear pants,_ he'd responded as he tried to remove his correspondence from the narrow metal slot without knocking over the ikebana floral arrangement and exit the mail room as quickly as humanly possible.

If he were being completely honest, there was a certain Shūtoku cheerleading skirt and top Takao had nicked from his sister a while back and wore on certain, special occasions. It resided in the deepest, darkest recesses of Takao's side of their enormous walk-in closet. Shin-chan loved it and they were _never_ giving it back. But this nosy old bat didn't need to know any of that.

You'd think it would be obvious to even the most casual of observers that there was no "woman" in their relationship. The _defining_ characteristic of a same-sex relationship like theirs was that there was no "woman." Otherwise, they'd be a hetero, "normal" couple and wouldn't be subjected to idiotic, prying questions like that one.

Of course, Takao was not oblivious. He knew what she was getting at. The addressees on the stack of mail he'd held in his hand were evidence enough. Hyphenated surnames names were technically possible in the country, but the legal gymnastics they entailed made sure very few people had them. Takao recalled a famous tennis player whose parents had been very progressive and very diligent in getting that accomplished at birth. But he could cite no other examples. 

He and Shintarō had legally married abroad, but the implications of it at home were still murky. Their team of lawyers had persuaded a local magistrate to sanction a name change shortly after they got back from their honeymoon, but they hadn't wanted to press their luck with a combined surname, lest they invite more legal scrutiny into their marriage.

They were fortunate enough to be able to afford a cabal of lawyers and accountants and estate planners that had created a safety net, a support apparatus of living wills, powers of attorney and other fall back documents, just in case. But when it came to the question of who would take on a married name, it had nothing to do with supposed gender roles -- one of them was a prominent, second-generation doctor with an instantly recognizable family name and a list of professional achievements a mile long, the other was not. It was the same reason Takao was the primary caregiver.

Once they became fathers, it got worse. Their neighbor was eager to spew nonsense, to bestow upon them unsolicited parental advice -- since she'd raised three of her own, as she was so apt to point out. She was full of social commentary that was as irksome as it was asinine and really seemed physically incapable of holding her tongue or minding her own business.

 _Such a beautiful child,_ she'd said one morning as they rode the elevator down to the garage together. Takao was balancing a fussy Kichiro at his hip and holding Keiko-chan's hand.  _It's a pity she's growing up without a mother,_ she continued, in a spectacular show of ass-hattery. The woman had the gall to look piteously at Keiko like she was an abandoned kitten, before sighing dramatically.  _How will she ever become a proper young lady._ Takaohad been so incensed he'd picked up his daughter and stormed off without a word as soon as the elevator doors dinged open.

 _You have a pair of grandmothers who adore you and a set of aunts who'd do anything for you,_ he'd said with thick conviction to a mostly sleepy child as he buckled her into her car seat. He knew she was just a baby, that everything that hateful woman had said had thankfully gone over his toddler's head, but he was still fuming. He thought of Aunt Momoi and Aunt Riko and all the other amazing women in their children's lives.  _You will become a proper young lady, no matter what that insipid cow says_ ,he'd told her, straightening her sparkly, pink headband.Honestly, the nerve of this woman. Their little girl couldn't possibly be more girly. _You will not want for a mother,_ he'd promised her fiercely.

It was amazing what people thought they had the right to say to someone just because they were perceived as different. He was glad Shintarō had been at work and hadn't been in the elevator with them, he would've throttled the woman.

Upon encountering this horrid creature again on the front lawn of their building, they bade Mrs. Sato the barest of greetings as they crossed her unavoidable path, zigzagged around the sprinklers, and finally made a beeline for the elegant lobby. Thankfully her dogs had not concluded their business of fertilizing the meticulously landscaped grounds, otherwise she would've followed them inside. She certainly seemed eager to have a word with them.

###

The mood was somber when they reached the top floor and the elevator doors opened up onto their penthouse apartment. Having discarded his imported, Italian loafers in the genkan, Shintarō turned on the lamp atop the side table to give the place some ambient light, before collapsing on their imported, Italian couch like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Takao followed closely behind. Being sent home without their supper had been a taxing affair. 

"We're the ones who are going to get stuck taking care of them when they're old and senile, aren't we?" 

"Yup."

"Shit. Your father's a piece of work." 

"Yup." 

"Your mother's no picnic either." 

"Yup." 

Takao shrugged. They sat side-by-side like this, adjoining hips and thighs, for mere moments, because they both knew they were wasting precious time. No matter how exhausting dinner with his parents had been, the fact remained that they had a penthouse all to themselves until the sun came up and then some. Takao's parents always let them sleep in, bringing the children to them later the next morning.

Takao was on Shintarō's lap before he could even finish that thought. The hawkeye's knees were pressed on either side his tsundere and they were making out like a couple of high school students. They were making out the way they did when they _had been_  a couple of high school students.

The more amorous aspects of their relationship had undergone some adjustments now that they were fathers. Their libidos hadn't changed at all, but getting down to business now required meticulous planning and forethought.

The fact remained that they both loved each other and that they both loved being with each other like this, but they could no longer strip down and have a romp on the couch, or if they were really desperate, satisfy that pressing urge on the step that separated the genkan from the living area the minute Shintarō came home from work. On those occasions Takao had pounced and they'd both gotten off before Midorima even got his shoes off.

Meals could no longer be interrupted by Kazunari clambering across the dinner table and Shintarō climbing up to join him and lavish him with his tongue.

Weekend marathon sex had now been condensed to nights like this one, when the stars and the planets aligned, when the children were sleeping over at their grandparents' house. Lazy, drawn out morning sex was a delicacy, a rich and decadent dessert that could only be had on such special occasions.

As for the rest of the time, they got by on quickies during the tantalizing few hours between when the children were put to bed and when Shin-chan needed to get his beauty sleep.

Midorima was beginning to worry that Takao was developing a Pavlovian response to that hour. When the clock struck eight, the hawkeye's mouth sometimes began salivating. On other nights, when Shin-chan didn't have to work the next day, they took their time and just dealt with having to get by on little sleep the next day.

Shintarō was fumbling around blindly between the seat cushions. It was an old habit. He was hoping Takao had planned ahead. Though instead of what he was looking for - a half empty bottle of their favorite lube - he pulled out a finger puppet, an elderly gnome whose red hat looked like it had been chewed on a bit by a tiny, incomplete set of choppers.

"Shin-chan! You found the troll." Takao laughed, pleased when his husband presented him with his find.

"We were looking everywhere for this," he explained, taking the felt piece of fabric and placing it next to a sailboat picture frame on the nearby side table for safekeeping.

"Your daughter will be most pleased. We had to make due earlier with just the three goats." He pulled the verdant fringe back from his husband's forehead and kissed him lovingly on his nose. "The story's a bit dull without the bridge troll," he admitted.

Sometimes Takao removed Midorima's glasses at this point. Shintarō was glad he hadn't. The lone lamp bathed their side of the couch in a warm, hazy glow and Shintarō always liked to watch. 

"Where's my prize?" He demanded gruffly. Takao laughed, commenting how Shin-chan would make a great bridge troll, and then he kissed him long and slow and in a way that left no doubts as to how the hawkeye was planning to reward his troll finder.

Midorima tried not to whimper into Takao tongue because this man, his shadow, could so effortless pry things out of his mouth in a way Shintarō could still scarcely believe.

With practiced hands, Midorima made quick work of Takao's clothes. He'd removed his tie, which was incidentally Midorima's tie. This pleased the tsundere to no end. Of course he'd complain about it when, inevitable, the random food stain would appeared on his stuff.

Still, Shintarō had a possessive streak and he loved staking out his claim. He loved when his husband wore his clothes, though admittedly Takao did not wear ties often and given their size differential there were few articles of Midorima's clothing he could wear.

With some assistance, he removed Takao's pants and threw them carelessly on the floor. Takao was down to a white, collared shirt that was completely open and hung seductively off one of his shoulders, a pair of black boxer briefs (Shintarō had always had a thing for raven-haired Kazunari in black underwear) and matching trouser socks. 

Takao seemed to be in no hurry tonight, though he was certainly interested judging from the tent he was pitching. There was a silk tie and a jacket on the floor and he'd managed to loosen the top few buttons of Midorima's slim-fit, tailored shirt, but that had been as far as he'd gotten divesting Shin-chan of his garments. In between kisses, Takao seemed much more preoccupied by his husband's clever hands massaging the globes of his pert ass through his underwear. Shintarō was more than perfectly fine with that. 

His mobile was still in the pocket of his suit pants when it buzzed against the inside of Kazunari's bare knee. Shintarō groaned at the interruption. He was intent on ignoring it. He knew it wasn't his in-laws. He had preset Takao's parents' number to vibrate on a different sequence. Knowing it wasn't a call about his children, Midorima felt perfectly justified in proceeding as if there had been no interruption. He finally had his husband right where he wanted him and no one was going to ruin the moment.   

And then Takao did something unexpected and incredibly stupid, though he didn't know just how stupid it was at the time.

He reached into Shintarō's pocket, took the phone out of its clothy, bespoke confines, and made off with it like a bandit.

###

The hawkeye fled to the terrace and in his rush to buy himself some time, slammed the glass door behind him. He knew he had precious few moments to lose, he knew Shintarō would be on his heels, he knew he'd probably start a colossal fight, but he just had to know.

He opened the offending mobile. There was a new missed call, a second voicemail, and the text message he'd seen at the restaurant earlier, but hadn't opened. He had no qualms about opening it now.  

_As always, it was a pleasure seeing you this morning, Shintarō. I thank you for your attentiveness and sincerely hope our schedules will allow another such visit before I return to Kyoto._

Suddenly, that incipient, nagging doubt that had materialized so very recently at dinner and that Takao had trampled down and ignored didn't seem so ludicrous, so far-fetched after all.

"Takao!" Midorima's tone was commanding and he'd punctuated it by slamming the door behind him. Though Takao had expected him to follow, he still jumped out of his skin. Midorima was breathing loudly through his nose and it wasn't from exertion. He was exhibiting that same affronted mannerism his father had espoused earlier when they'd been asked to leave the restaurant. 

It was obvious the former ace was not amused with his shadow. "Give it back," he demanded.

Takao was too upset, too hurt to even shout, at least initially. Soon, he'd be screaming at the top of his lungs. But for now, he spoke very, very quietly. "You told me you were on call this morning," he said clutching the phone against his chest as realization was dawning on him. "You didn't go with us to the park because you said you were on call."  

"I was at the hospital the entire morning," Shintarō responded defensively.

"Were you? At the hospital. Really? Then what's this?" Takao turned the phone around so that Midorima could see the newly opened text and shoved it in the doctor's face. He could see the words reflected on his partially rimmed glasses. 

The tips of Shintarō's ears turned red, the way they always did when he'd been embarrassed. The way Takao found so endearing, except now it felt like a stab in the back, confirming his sinking suspicions. It made the former point guard feel sick to his stomach in a way that had nothing to do with the questionable oysters. 

"That's not. You -" Midorima began to say, but Takao was having none of it.

"What the ever loving _fuck_ Shintarō. Akashi? Really? Akashi?" Takao was so angry he was shaking. His whole world was falling apart. _Fuck._  "You're going to throw this away over Akashi fucking Seijūrō?" He asked in growing shock and disbelief.

"Keep your voice down," Midorima warned through gritted teeth. "Stop it, or --"

"Or what? I'll cause a scene. Ha! You're afraid I'll cause a scene. You're afraid that hag downstairs will hear us? Huh? Is that it?" Takao laughed mirthless. It was vacant and humorless and so very ugly. Not at all his usual lighthearted cackle.

It made Midorima cringe, but he stood his ground. "Stop it."

" _Incredible_. You know that. You're incredible. We're home early because you and your family just caused a scene and you're afraid _I'll_ embarrass you? Air our dirty laundry to the neighbors?"  

"Takao. Calm down."

"No."

"Takao, give me the phone."

" _Fuck_ no."

"Give me the phone this instant."

"I don't give a fuck -"

"You don't understand. If you'll just listen --"

"Fuck. I _knew_ it," he yelled getting ready to fling that damnable mobile to its watery grave, ready to hurl it down into the marina below.

Midorima's reflexes were quicker, he was also taller. He wrestled the smartphone out of Takao's tight grasp and began to scroll furiously through it for earlier messages.

"Pay attention, you idiot." He began showing Takao all the prior texts from Akashi in descending order. Unbeknownst to Takao, they had been trading messages for weeks. 

_I'm really worried about Mother. She hasn't been herself lately._

_She slept all day again today. This really isn't like her._

_I finally convinced her to see someone about this. He'll be at the house tomorrow morning._

_The doctor here in Kyoto recommended that she see a specialist in Tokyo. Are you familiar with Dr. Yoshida? What can you tell me about him?_

_Shintarō. Thank you for the articles you've sent me. I feel some relief in learning that Dr. Yoshida was your professor and in reading his published work. As always, you are an immense help and your support means a lot to my family and I. Things have been difficult in Kyoto, as you can imagine._

_I have some business to attend to in Tokyo at the beginning of the month. The restaurant venture I told you about. I shall accompany Mother to her doctor's appointments while I'm there. Will you have some free time?_

_I know this is not your specialty. I know she is receiving the best care money can buy, but it would give me some much needed assurance if I could turn to a friend for a second opinion._

_I'd like to see you. Will you be at the hospital today? I can bring the paperwork and the patient to you. She says it has been too long since we last saw you. I have your wallet. I can return it then._

Takao took the phone from his husband's hand. He scrolled and scrolled, astounded. He read and reread each message that had passed between the two former middle school teammates over the course of three weeks until he got to the last one. The one Shin-chan had received tonight and Takao had opened.

"Shit. I'm sorry," he said for lack of a better response. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his veins was quickly deserting him. He felt lightheaded, ready to crash. "Is she going to be okay?"

Shintarō was distant and reserved. "That's confidential." He spoke like he was light years away. "I can't divulge what's in a patient's chart. You know that."

Takao flinched. He felt chastised, even though he knew Shin-chan was right. He shouldn't have asked. She was a patient, however tangentially, and ethically, Midorima couldn't discuss it with him.

Midorima must've taken pity on Takao because he added, "I can tell you that Akashi is rightfully concerned. And that the coming months will be difficult for the family, to say the least."

Much later, when Midorima had the family's permission to discuss it, Takao would learn more about a rare medical condition as his incredibly talented husband oversaw a team of doctors entrusted with the care of a friend's loved one in a field that wasn't his own specialty, but one in which he was nonetheless brilliant. It would form the basis of a ground breaking study fully funded by the Akashi Corporation and prompt Shintarō to write a second, lauded research paper. But for now, Takao had more pressing concerns. 

". . . Are we going to be okay?" For all the yelling he'd done earlier Takao's voice was very, very quiet now.  

Shintarō sighed. He sounded exhausted. "I can't believe . . . after all this time, you still don't trust me." It wasn't a question, it was a grim conclusion.  

Takao could see the astonishment, the hurt in those beautiful, vibrant green eyes and _yes_ , even now they were beautiful.

Shintarō looked betrayed and Takao realized then that he'd made an even bigger mistake than misinterpreting Akashi's texts. 

 _That_ had been a gargantuan mistake, but this one was even bigger. He had doubted Shintarō when his Shin-chan deserved only his trust. His Shin-chan was not like that. His Shin-chan loved him and was devoted to him. Kazunari really should have factored those things in, taken them into account before he'd jumped to conclusions, before he'd started yelling at the top of his lungs and endangering telephonic equipment.

All of these things should have been obvious to him, but he could never think straight. His head always got muddled when Akashi was involved. 

"Look, Shintarō. _Shin-chan_." Takao gave him a small, embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry. It's just that he called earlier with the kids in the bath and then at the restaurant you got a text. And when he called again . . . I just --"

Midorima took the phone from Takao's hand and put it down on the table, a wrought iron patio set that at one point had been black, but had been bleached by the sun down to a dull grey.

He sat down next to it and then he did something Takao wasn't expecting.

He drew him up in his arms and pulled Kazunari down on to his lap. "I thought we were past this," he said as he brushed the fringe from Takao's face.

His touch was tender, but Shintarō's voice was bogged down by weariness. "All through high school. And college, even in medical school. It was the same thing. I married _you_ and even now, you're still focused on Akashi."

Takao tried to reign it in, but even so, he still cringed. When Shin-chan put it that way, it did kind of make him sound a little unbalance, a little obsessed.  

"You know I don't wear my heart on my sleeve like that idiot firefighter." Of all their friends, they hung out with Kuroko and Kagami as a couple the most. It made them privy to a lot of PDAs. For all intents and purposes Kagami was American and shameless in his outwardly demonstrative affections towards the Phantom Passer. "But that doesn't mean my feelings for you are any less . . . _ardent_."

Takao was more adept (infinitely more adept) at showing his emotions, but that didn't mean Shintarō didn't have feelings towards Takao, and felt them deeply.

In a lot of ways Shintarō was the more sensitive of the two of them, the one more easily hurt. And so he naturally hid, protected his emotions under a mountain of tsundere. A fact that often escaped their friends' attention, a fact that Takao knew all too well and yet it was one he'd overlooked in a rare moment of thoughtlessness. Because even so-called saints can fuck up royally sometimes. 

"I know, Shin-chan. I --" Midorima tapped a long, graceful finger against Takao's lips signifying his wasn't done yet.

Even with the mood was so serious, Takao had to fight the reflex to suck on it. Thankfully, the tempting digit didn't linger.  

"Akashi," Midorima continued. Takao wasn't proud of himself, but even now, now that their little misunderstanding has been cleared up, he couldn't help but recoil a little at the sound of his rival's name on his lover's lips.

Shintarō didn't miss the grimace, but undeterred he plodded through, "Akashi is my friend, but you are my best friend. Surely you can see the difference?"

Takao nod attentively. He felt very small at the moment, like a contrite, naughty school boy being reprimanded at his father's knee. 

"-- And you are my lover." _Whoops_. Maybe that schoolboy analogy didn't fit after all.

"You're my husband. The father of my children. You're my heart. And the only man I will ever want to bed." Yup. He was definitely taking that analogy back now. Especially now that Shin-chan's words were doing things to Takao's pants. Bad analogy.  _Down boy_.

Takao's insides were turning to mush, roughly the consistency of natto. Of course, none of what Shintarō was saying to him was any great revelation. His recent bout of insecurity notwithstanding, the hawkeye knew all these things were true already. But for a proud man like Midorima Shintarō to say things like this _aloud_ \-- well, it was like Takao's birthday and Christmas and White Day all wrapped up in a bow.

Kazunari knew he was going to play these precious words in his head later when he was alone, re-live this moment and blush like a happy idiot for years to come. They may even be the words he would think of on his deathbed, the ones he'd take to his grave because he knew if he didn't fuck it up, he had a lifetime left with this man, and _only_ this man.

And then he wasn't thinking much of anything because Shin-chan was kissing him and though it started off tentative and sweet, they quickly picked up steam and soon they were right back to where they'd left off with Shintarō's large hands on either side of Kazunari's ass.  

Shin-chan's words had gone straight to Kazunari's groin. Whoever said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach had clearly overlooked the ear, because right now it was unseasonably warm on the terrace and unbearable tight in his boxer briefs.

###

"We. We should get back inside." Shintarō said breathlessly and in between kisses. 

Shin-chan was gorgeous like this, all pale and long-limbed and naked. In contrast to the night's sky he was practically luminous. Takao really should allow him to take him to bed now. They'd be more comfortable there.

There would a sturdy mattress, soft pillows and luxurious sheets with a sky-high thread count that would put a five star hotel to shame.

And they'd have lube. A factor which considerably limited the possibilities out here on the terrace.

But Takao couldn't resist the magnetic pull of this new setting. It was impossible to resist when his Shin-chan was like this, all bare and unguarded and every ounce of him his.

"Come on Shin-chan," he said as he sucked on the tsundere's bottom lip persuasively. "Let's stay right here."

Takao didn't want to stop. Not even temporarily, during the few moments it would take to traverse the penthouse and move their activities behind closed quarters. He was growing pouty. He didn't have to stop, if he didn't want to.

And truth be told, Takao was a bit of an exhibitionist. It wasn't that he wanted to get caught - though caught they had been, many, many times - but he liked the excitement, the possibility, the _what if_.

"It's cold. This chair is hard and we don't even have --"

"It'll be fun Shin-chan," Takao wriggled his hips suggestively. "Where's your sense of adventure?" 

Out here they were relatively safe from peeping toms. The terrace faced the ocean, pitch black at this time of night, and the building itself was tall enough to shield them from any prying eyes on the ground. Barring any unexpected, late night helicopter news crew, they were practically invisible up here.

It was the best of both worlds. The excitement of being outdoors while still in the privacy of their own home. Really, he couldn't believe they'd never done it out here before.

Takao took both of them in hand and began a slow, steady rhythm. He wanted this to last, he wanted to draw it out. He didn't want this to be over. 

Not when Shin-chan groaned his given name and held on to his ass for dear life, and kissed him like he was essential to his very existence. 

It was a testament to sheer mental exhaustion when Midorima Shintarō's considerable stamina gave out first. Shin-chan fell over the edge and Takao relished the splash of warmth on his fingers, but he didn't take his eyes off his husband. He rode it out, kept a steady pace until his movements became jerky and soon he followed. 

And for all those times Shintarō had called him a fool, Takao never felt like he lived up to that title like he did tonight. Because he'd have to be a complete and utter fool to believe that this man's heart, so hidden and so well protected, belonged to anyone else but him.

Because that look on Shintarō's face in the heady afterglow, that unapologetic, unmistakable countenance of love and devotion, no one else saw that look but him, Takao knew.

And then practical considerations set in. 

"Wait. Did you just wipe your hands on my ficus?"

"It was either that, or explain to the dry cleaners  _again_  why there are -- "

"Okay. Point taken," he interrupted before Takao finished recounting that embarrassing episode.

That rare moment of unguarded tenderness was over.  

It had been a fleeting one after all. Being in a relationship and being in love had not given his tsundere a personality transplant and that was more than okay with Takao, because he loved that great big, disagreeable grouch he lived with and he wouldn't want him any other way.

"Let's go inside before hypothermia sets in," Shin-chan said in his usual put upon tone. He was back to being his normal gruffy self. "Where'd you put my pants?"

###

It was a ridiculous choice. It was like Takao had asked him to choose which one of his limbs he'd like to keep. No matter which one he chose, the outcome would still be terrible, and painful.  

In every scenario he was doomed. At the same time, they couldn't stay out here forever. The sun would come up soon enough and then they'd be those two guys standing naked on their balcony. They were going to make the six o'clock news this time for sure.

He should have never listened to Takao. _Come on Shin-chan. It'll be fun Shin-chan. Where's your sense of adventure,_ he had said. Takao had the _worst_ ideas.

Shintarō peered over the railing again. He looked longingly at the bottom half of his bespoke suit which still lain on the terrace below. Mrs. Sato was going to find it in the morning when she went out there to water her plants. And since raining pants was never on the forecast, it would be no mystery who they belonged to.

Takao's boxer briefs and Shintarō's own underpants were nowhere to be found. He wasn't sure if he should be thankful that they weren't also festoon over Mrs. Sato's potted azaleas. It was too dark to see the grounds from up here. For all he knew they might be on top of the hedges, on display for anyone entering and leaving the building. Only the light of day would tell them if their dirty laundry had been aired to their neighbors, so to speak.

Takao jiggled the handle of the terrace door for the umpteenth time. It was hopeless. Midorima had tried that for an entire half hour and it didn't even budge. He'd even taken a chair to it, but the stupid tempered glass wouldn't shatter. 

Last year Kuroko had gotten stuck out here on Shintarō's birthday. He'd grown desperate and tried the same thing with identical results. The latch was broken. The only way to open it was from inside. They had called a guy over the very next day and gotten it fixed. Except, clearly it hadn't _stayed_ fixed because now they were stuck on the wrong side of their apartment.

Between the both of them, Takao still had his shirt and one of his socks. Somehow those had survived Kazunari knocking the table over with his foot in his enthusiastic, lovemaking zeal. At the time, Takao had had his hands full and they had both been too distracted to notice or care.

Midorima's phone was still with them. Sort of. The screen had cracked in the fall, but it seemed to be in working order and he could still make out his contacts list. Thank heaven for small miracles, though even that was a sharp, double edged sword.     

Shintarō glanced down at his maligned phone again. The battery icon was blinking at him like dissipating sand running through an hourglass. Their time was almost up.

He was going to have to pull the trigger. He was going to have to decide which one of these unlucky contacts would be assigned the unenviable task of bailing them out tonight.

There were only a handful of people who had been entrusted with an elevator key card and a key to the front door of their penthouse. Takao's parents were with the children of course and Midorima would rather take his chances scaling the side of the building than get them involved in their predicament.

If Shintarōpressed his face against the glass and used his hands as blinders, he could see the lone table lamp he'd turned on inside their apartment and he could make out the trail of clothes they'd left behind. Getting locked out of one's apartment was embarrassing. But getting locked out of one's apartment  _au naturel_  was a whole other level of embarrassing. Couple that with his equally clad lover and it wasn't hard to figure out what the both of them had been up to tonight.

Midorima mentally went through that very short list again. There were his own parents, but that too provoked similar levels of uncomfortableness. What, with last year's incident, his ears were still ringing from the verbal lashing his mother had given the both of them over Takao's errant text. _Stop involving me in your bedroom hijinks Shintarō_ , she'd told him as if Midorima was in the habit of pulling pranks and that had been their intent all along.

There was also his sister, who was probably not answering his calls. She was furious with him. And even if she wasn't, he was none too eager to greet his baby sister in his birthday suit. They had never given Kazumi a key because if they had, she'd surely have taken it as an invitation to move in. They could probably bribe her to take her parent's key and bail them out, but she was as keen on teasing as her brother was and they'd never hear the end of it.

That left only one other person. It was a loathsome choice.  

It was like ripping off a band-aid, he told himself. The quicker he did it, the less it would hurt. He bit his lip, closed his eyes and hit send.

* * *

**AN:** This chapter was an emotional roller coaster. Sorry if I missed any typos. I'll go back and fix them later. Right now, I'm exhausted. Whew!


	4. Why'd it take so long to see the light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because I’m in love with you, you idiot." Yup. That pretty much summed up their relationship perfectly.

There they both stood side-by-side on the terrace. Proud, arrogant, brash Midorima Shintarō was a devoted husband, a respectable father of two, a highly sought after neurosurgeon. Proud, arrogant, brash Midorima Shintarō was also naked. He was as naked as a newborn babe with nothing but a suspiciously shiny potted ficus gripped tightly between his long, elegant fingers. It was covering the important bits, _mostly_.

That sliver of potted flora was the _only_ thing standing between him and his soon to be parting ways dignity. He was stubbornly clutching on to the terracotta planter so tightly his knuckles had turned white. The irony that it was a ficus -- a fig tree -- that it was the proverbial fig leaf he was using to cover up his modesty did not escape his attention.

And to his left cackling like a loon, like a shameless, unrepentant sinner was Takao Kazunari, who would've been in an equally scandalous state of undress, except he'd at least been able to find his shirt. The oxbow-shaped hem of the designer button-down was just long enough to cover the very tops of his thighs in the front and his ass in the back. But just barely. Midorima's ass was not so lucky. It was currently feeling the brunt of just how windy it could get on the forty-second floor of a high rise that faced the ocean. Takao had offered him his one sock, it was of little comfort.

Shintarō had refused to accept the silky stocking the way one would refuse to accept the offer of a dead mouse, with disgust and reproach. Midorima had glared at the hawkeye as if he was single-handedly responsible for all their troubles. Not that he was blaming Kazunari for their current predicament, _not at all_. It ever ended well for Shintarō when he was caught up in one of Takao's schemes and he was often caught up in those schemes. The phrase "It'll be fun, Shin-chan" should be banned from Takao's verbal lexicon.

They couldn't see inside the penthouse unless they pressed their noses against the glass wall or the glass door of the terrace. This was because Shintarō had left a single table lamp on and the light it emitted wasn't enough to illuminate so many square centimeters of living space. So instead, the wall of glass in front of them worked like a mirror and they had their indecent reflections staring back at them.

After an indiscernible amount of time (they had no way of telling time once Midorima's cracked cell phone finally left them), Shintarō yelped in surprise when the overhead lights suddenly turned on at the flick of a switch and he could see inside the penthouse again. The effect was like that two-way mirror Aomine liked to play with down at the precinct.  

Midorima frowned at the sight that greeted him. A doubled over in laughter Kuroko was struggling to keep his hands steady as he jiggled the door handle until it finally gave way, effectively terminating Takao and Midorima's accidental exile on the terrace.

Shintarō was the first to cross the threshold into the warm temperature controlled penthouse, rebuffing Kuroko by way of greeting. "You're sure enjoying this for someone who got himself stuck in this same situation last year." He'd already forgotten that what he should really be doing was bolting to his bedroom to find the nearest kimono. 

"Yes Midorima-kun, but thankfully I managed to keep my clothes on," he rejoined.

Shintarō chose to ignore the jibe, he held his head up high and tried to look dignified, or at least as dignified as one could look being completely naked and holding a potted plant. 

"And what's this idiot doing here?" He demanded as he turned the corner and nearly bumped into Kagami coming out of their kitchen. Takao who was following too closely on the tsundere's heels and was laughing so hard tears were blurring his vision did bump into Shin-chan's cold, exposed derriere which made the hawkeye laugh even louder. 

Kagami -- or that idiot firefighter, as Shintarō liked to refer to him -- was shaking so hard with silent laughter he was dropping fried wontons all over Midorima's clean floor. At Midorima's insistence, the penthouse was at all times kept so immaculate, so spotless one could eat off the floor (they had gone through many-a-cleaning-lady as a result). But that didn't mean Shintarō wanted to put that to the test. 

Evidently their friends had been in the penthouse long enough for Kagami to have rummaged through their cupboards already. It was like he had a bottomless pit for a stomach.

Fried wontons were precisely the kind of junk food Takao bought and Shintarō turned his discerning nose up at. Serin's so-called light (Midorima would have more aptly described him as a dim bulb) was carrying the wasabi-flavored snacks in an obnoxious mug that bore the ridiculous proclamation,  _Neurosurgeons Do It With the Lights On_. It was a preposterous double entendre given that no doctor worked in the dark.  

Takao had found the kitschy cup years ago at a 100-yen store and had instantly fallen in love with it --  _of course he had._  It was just the kind of low brow, sophomoric humor that was right up the former point guard's alley. He had given the purportedly ceramic cup to Shintarō as a present and the green-haired tsundere had proceeded to "accidentally" drop it more than a few times, but to his chagrin the darn thing proved indestructible.

Midorima ignored the messy redhead, turning his wrath on his Teikō teammate who'd just managed to close the door of the terrace and was picking something off the floor. "I told you to come alone," he reminded him.

Kuroko shrugged and smiled at him innocently. He was an expert at getting under Midorima's skin. No wonder he and Takao were as thick as thieves. It was like they traded pointers on technique.

"Are you kidding me?" said the idiot in question. He spoke with his mouth full, _of course he did_. "When Kuroko called to tell me what happened, well. The guys at the station wouldn't let me miss _this_." He was clearly enjoying this. Everyone, but Shintarō was clearly enjoying this.

Kagami was having trouble laughing and chomping away on wontons at the same time. Midorima secretly hoped that stupid redhead choked on them. Of course, if that happened, he'd be ethically bound as a doctor to save his life. Midorima really didn't want to put his arms around the idiot in anything that remotely resembled a hug, even if it was only to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

Kagami wasn't the only one enjoying a snack. The loud slurp grated on Shintarō's last nerve. 

"A milkshake?!" Midorima barked. "We were freezing our bollocks off out there," he gestured wildly to the terrace behind him "and you found time to pick up _this idiot_ at work -"

"Hey!" said idiot protested being called an idiot.

"- and stop at a Maji Burger for a milkshake?! Unbelievable."

Kuroko shrugged. "I was thirsty, Midorima-kun," he said in between slurps of his bendy-straw.

Midorima remained unmoved by Kuroko's plight. Lips pressed thin in frustration, he took a moment to count backwards from ten. Then, he turned his furious glare on the third source of merriment in the room. "And just what exactly are _you_ laughing about? You were locked out too, idiot." Seriously, hyenas didn't laugh as regularly as Takao did.

The hawkeye was legitimately in pain now. He had been laughing so hard and for so long, he was in stitches. "C'mon Shin-chan." He struggled for breath. "You've got to admit, it's _funny_."

Midorima would admit no such thing. But he didn't have time to quibble with Takao because just then he heard a familiar, high-pitched growl-whine combination coming from his imported, Italian leather couch.

"What is _that_ doing here?" He hotly demanded, forgetting about the ficus he was holding for a moment and pointing in the direction of the wild beast who'd made himself at home and was presently chewing on one of Shintarō's expensive silk throw cushions.

"Don't call him ' _that_ ,'" Taiga protested. "You'll hurt his feelings."

"It's a _dog_."

"It's our son, Midorima-kun." 

Shintarō rolled his eyes at Tetsuya. Kuroko had this annoying habit of anthropomorphizing his pets. He'd done the same thing with the last one too. It had ended in heartbreak. The average lifespan for the breed was 14 years, they had sadly learned. 

This was not Tetsuya #2, though you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He was a chip off the old block. He had the same piercing blue eyes, black overcoat and white belly and paws. This was Number Two's offspring, creatively named Nigō, Jr. and nicknamed Tetsuya #3.

The young pup was like father like son in all respects, including in his propensity to pee over Midorima's possessions and bark incessantly. Midorima was as crazy about him as he had been about the one before him, which was to say, not at all. 

"Besides," piped in Kagami. "If we didn't bring him with us. We'd have to wake up early and go home to walk him."

Midorima pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. "Out," he said. "Out the three of you."

###

That idiot firefighter, his equally obnoxious boyfriend, and their annoying dog ended up sleeping over against Shintarō's strenuous and vociferous objections (which everyone in the room ignored).

Shintarō suspected the metro didn't close as early as they claimed it did and he never did get a satisfactory response to why they couldn't take a cab home at his expense. It was the same way they had arrived here in the first place. Midorima had pointed this out as he handed over all the yen in his overly padded wallet to a palms open Kuroko. The amount of "cab fare" he was reimbursing the Sixth Man for was enough to get him to Mount Fuji and back.

He suspected the real reason their friends insisted on overstaying their welcome was to vex him. It certainly wasn't to vex Takao. For reasons Shintarō could not name, Takao genuine liked these idiots, especially Kuroko. The hawkeye had looked overly pleased with the way tonight had turned out.

Midorima scowled at the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth for exactly fifteen revolutions per tooth (clockwise and counterclockwise) using the same state of the art electric toothbrush their dentist had suggested, followed by a thorough flossing that would make a hygienist weep. As in all aspects of his life, Midorima Shintarō did everything humanly possible.

He even used a tongue scraper, no matter how much Takao made fun of him for it. The man in question had finished passing bristles over his pearly whites twenty minutes ago before turning in. Midorima had known soap bubbles with longer lifespans than Takao's nightly routine.

 _At least they'd get a mouthwatering breakfast out of it_ , he thought as he swished around the leading brand's mouthwash for the recommended minute and a half per cheek before spitting it out onto their white, Carrara marble his-and-his sink.

He'd rather die than admit it, but that idiot redhead was an amazing cook. He didn't sleep over _that_ often (thankfully it was part of his job to sleep at the station some of the time), but when he did sleep at their place, he always made them breakfast the next morning and it was so positively scrumptious that Midorima would have to work extra hard to keep that unamused glower on his face.

###

They'd retreated to their bedroom almost as soon as they were freed from the terrace and Shintarō had finished venting his grievances at everyone.

There had been no need to get their overnight visitors settled in first. Kagami and Kuroko had slept over at their place often enough to know which one of the many bedrooms was the guest bedroom and where they kept the extra towels, the triple-milled soap, and the emergency toothbrushes still in their unopened packages.

Despite Midorima's loud proclamations that he'd had it with everyone and their dog and he was calling it a night, moments before slamming his bedroom door shut, he and Takao had not gone to bed right away. They had some unfinished business to attend to behind closed quarters. 

He and Takao argued in front of their friends all the time. They always had as Ōtsubo _,_ Miyaji, and Kimura could attest to. Their school motto,  _Persistent and Tireless_ , could also apply to their epic fights. Still, this business with Akashi was a serious matter, not one of their petty disagreements and not something they were going to hash out in front of an audience. Midorima waited until they were alone to broach the subject again.

The first time they'd met, Midorima had thought Takao a frivolous person. The hawkeye had made such an unfavorable impression on the tsundere that Midorima had wanted nothing further to do with the freshman and his obnoxious laugh that seemed to play over and over again, bouncing off the walls of the gym and the locker room like it was on an endless loop. But that had only been a first impression and it had been a transient one at that.

Midorima Shintarō would certainly never have imagined finding in this "frivolous person" an on-the-court partner, a friend turned best friend, and a teammate he trusted so completely he'd end up commending the beginnings of his trademark three-point shots to him. There had been no way of knowing that he would be entrusting so many of his "firsts" to him. He certainly never imagined in that initial, schoolyard meeting that he'd be proposing marriage to this same man ten-years later or that sometime after that he'd be raising a family with him. Not even Oha Asa could have predicted such a wild and unexpected turn of events. He couldn't have foreseen that nowadays, whenever he heard one of his children giggle, he hoped their father would pass on to them his bubbly, carefree, happy disposition. 

Midorima knew this wasn't over yet and so he was the first to approach the powder keg that was the subject of one Akashi Seijūrō.

Takao had always had strong feelings toward Akashi. The Winter Cup had only complicated matters the way fierce, intense competition sometimes did. The fact that Akashi had blocked Takao's pass meant for Midorima, had made things infinitely worse. Takao was furious with himself and with Akashi for weeks after that. 

At first, Shintarō had innocently thought that the rivalry had something to do with the fact that the hawkeye and the captain of the Generation of Miracles played the same point guard position. After all, Takao wasn't like this with any of Midorima's other Teikō teammates. One could legitimately argue that those guys liked Takao more than they liked Midorima (most people did). It was certainly not jealously over having been an ex-teammate. It took Midorima an embarrassingly long time to figure out that _he_ was at the epicenter of Takao's extreme dislike of Akashi and that it was his friendship with the wielder of the emperor eye that unnerved a normally confident Kazunari.  

That was then, this was now.

Midorima had learned a thing or two (dozen) about the hawkeye in their years together. One of those things was that though he would never admit it, Takao sometimes needed reassurance. Being comforting and reassuring were not in Midorima's nature. They were well beyond his comfort zone. Even so, Midorima had learned long ago that there were no limits to what he would do if this man required it of him. There were a lot of things he wouldn't normally do that he did for Takao.   

A hand job out on the terrace - though enjoyable, _very very_ enjoyable - was not a relationship balm. It wasn't a substitute for talking things out. Still, there was no reason they couldn't have this conversation in bed. In fact, Midorima could not think of a better place for it.

If Takao was feeling insecure about his ability to keep his husband's interest all to himself, to keep him from straying, Midorima was all too happy to disabuse him of the notion that there was anyone else who could hold his attention. 

Midorima put down his tongue scraper. He didn't bother putting clothes on as he left the bathroom, passed the walk-in-closet and headed with singular purpose to their bed.

He had learned a thing or two about the hawkeye in their years in bed together. One of those things was that though he wouldn't necessarily say it, Takao liked to be dominated. And Shintarō's height and larger size  were major turn ons for the point guard. So Midorima used this bit of knowledge to his advantage. 

Takao was the first to speak as Shintarō approached him. "I'm sorry, Shin-chan. I shouldn't have -- "

"Hush, Takao." The tsundere said as he pushed Takao onto his back and bullied his way onto their bed. "The only thing I want to hear from you is how good I make you feel," he said as he kissed the indentation at the center where Takao's collar bones met, before taking a bite. 

Predictably, the shorter man gasped, loudly. 

The sound went straight to Midorima's groin. "Yeah," he murmured in the hawkeye's ear. "Just like that." 

"Shin-cha . . ."

After he'd turned Takao into a whimpering, begging mess of arousal, Midorima reached back into the top drawer of his own nightstand pulling out a plastic bottle of lube for now and a small hand towel for later. Because Midorima may have been demanding in bed, but he was always a considerate (and considerable) lover. 

He pulled Takao onto his lap, back to chest, and began his work in earnest. "You're the only person I do this with," he said removing his wedding band and pouring lube on the index, middle, and ring finger of his dominant hand. He pulled one of Takao's legs against the hawkeye's chest to spread him open. Shintarō wasn't worried. Takao was  _very_  flexible. He could still do back flips. A fact Shintarō privately found very sexy. 

"Your tight little ass. It's the only place this hand has been," he said matter-of-factly. Takao craned his neck forward. He cupped his own anatomy out of the way so he could get a better view. He was mesmerized, wanted to see Shintarō's long, elegant index finger (Shintarō always started with his index finger) push itself inside.  

While Midorima's left hand worked its magic, he kept his right arm firmly across Takao bare chest pinning him to the taller man's torso as he mouthed his neck and whispered filthy things in his ear. He was intent on taking his sweet time. He refused to be rushed. 

Takao was beyond stirred up now, his breath heavy and labored, but that didn't stop Shintarō from talking. His hand didn't stop either, he was relentless even as Takao was begging him for more.

"Do you think I'd do this with Akashi? Do you?" He asked as he removed all three of his fingers and pushed a thoroughly prepared Takao off of his thighs and onto the mattress. He poured more of the lube to get himself slickened.

It was a gamble. He hadn't been sure how Takao would react to the introduction of the other man's name into their bed, but it hadn't ruined the mood. To the contrary, Takao seemed turned on to the point of distraction by Midorima’s forcefulness.

"Answer me," Shintarō demanded, slapping an ass cheek to get Takao to focus.

 ". . . nngh. . . No."

"Louder," he commanded.

"No!"

Shintarō wasn't worried about being overheard. The penthouse was purposely designed with the master suite set apart from all the other bedrooms.

"That's better," he said, assuaging the reddened flesh.

"More. . . Shin-chan. I want more." Midorima was on all fours now, arms and legs on either side of a writhing Takao and the hawkeye was bucking his hips trying to bring him inside. But Midorima wasn't done talking.

"Only you," he growled, kissing Takao fiercely and finally, _finally_ closing the distance between them. "It's always been you. It will always be you. Only you," he said in between subsequent kisses. 

The hawkeye may have liked to be dominated in bed, but when it was over -- after Midorima had deftly taken him apart with the expertise that only came from years and years of practice (Midorima did nothing half-assed) -- Kazunari wanted to be cuddled. And the harsher Shintarō had been, the more Takao wanted to be spooned, to have Shin-chan whisper nonsense in his ear. And after he'd changed the sheets and used the small hand towel to clean both of them up, Shintarō did just that until Kazu fell asleep, warm, sated and reassured, in his arms.

###

It was morning now and Takao's dress shirt lay rumpled somewhere on the floor and the defiled ficus was sitting unperturbed in the corner of their spacious bedroom. Shintarō had had enough foresight to place it in front of one of the room's floor-to-ceiling windows -- it was an outdoor plant after all -- but not enough foresight to close the drapes closest to their bed. Consequently, it was the sunlight that had woken him up.

They were in bed together, Takao curled up against his husband clinging like a sinner feeling particularly in need of penance. He had turned around during the night so that he was now facing Shintarō and drooling on his chest, no less. Although he was sure to complain that Takao was stuck on him like a leech, Shintarō was beyond comfortable like this. He didn't mind the spittle as long as it was Kazunari's. There were a lot of things he didn't mind as long as it was with Kazunari.

They were both naked in their own bed surrounded by pillows and clean, soft, high-thread count sheets. Midorima was finicky about his bedclothes. The room was cast in a hazy, early morning glow which made Shintarō feel cozy and made the room seem somehow smaller, made the world seem like it was just the two of them.

He didn't want to move a muscle. Not when Takao was warm and pliant in his arms and blessedly quiet. Shintarō was _very_ comfortable. He wanted very much to fall back asleep, to join his hawkeye in slumber, and he was well on his way until he recalled the events of last night.

The whole episode out on the terrace had been ridiculous. Takao was the only one who got to see him like this. Who saw him let go. The only one whom he could be vulnerable with, the only one who could take him to the edge and watch him fall over. How could he possibly entertain the outlandish notion that there was someone else out there. That there could _ever_ be someone else. He nuzzled the hawkeye's neck, kissed him awake. Midorima wasn't even going to complain about morning breath, he'd ignore the rule just for today.

"Mmm . . . Shin-chan," Takao grumbled sleepily. The tsundere rolled both of them over so that the hawkeye was on his back, careful not to put too much of his own weight on the smaller man. Takao's hair was a mess, he looked like he'd spent the night in a wind tunnel, and there was a crease on his face from the pillow. Takao was gorgeous when he was sleepy.

He cracked a silvery-blue eye open and Shintarō breath stuttered. He had always thought Kazunari had bewitching eyes. He couldn't describe their not-quite oval shape except to say they were the shape of mischief. They twinkled and danced and teased just for him. They were the perfect combination of blue and gray. They were the ocean after a storm when everything was peaceful and quiet, except Kazunari was anything but peaceful and quiet.

Takao liked to say Midorima had beautiful eyes. He adored their color and was obsessed with Shintarō's thick, long lashes, something the tsundere had been self-conscious about since grade school when one of his more annoying classmates had asked him if he wore mascara. He'd even tried cutting them once to disastrous consequences.

Midorima still wished he had less conspicuous eyelashes, but the fact that Takao loved them made him feel more comfortable with his anatomy. And it wasn't just his eyelashes, Kazunari had a way of making Shintarō feel comfortable in his own skin. He had a way of making him feel normal when everything about him from his eccentric, acerbic personality to his height was anything but.

"That tickles," the smaller man whined as Shintarō kissed his neck, making no effort to push the doctor away. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Takao took advantage of their tangled legs and pulled his tsundere in closer.

Shintarō continued his assault on the sensitive skin of Kazunari's nape, which smelled deliciously of sleep and tasted even better. He alternated between nips, licks and open-mouth kisses devising a slow and steady path between the hawkeye's neck and the back of his shoulder. He saw no reason to stop. And every reason to keep going.

His hands found their way to Takao's sumptuous backside. Kazunari helped by lifting his narrow hips off the bed. Kazunari could be very helpful when properly motived.

Much later, when he was more fully awake, the hawkeye propped himself up on his elbows and said cautiously, "Shin-chan?"

Midorima grimaced, he hated that Takao felt it necessary to take that tone with him. He hated that his shadow felt like he had to tread on eggshells around him.

"Why . . . ," the hawkeye faltered for a moment, before gathering his bearings. "Why did Akashi have your wallet?" He was referring to the texts on Midorima's phone. He'd been thinking about them this whole time.

Takao was being serious now. He was also avoiding Shintarō's searching gaze. The classmate that had been unanimously voted class clown three years in a row, wasn't even cracking a smile. 

 _They were fine. They were absolutely fine._ He hadn't done anything to betray Takao's trust. He'd never betray his trust, but it didn't make saying this any easier. Despite his mental assurances, this question was making Shintarō very nervous, was spiking his pulse. "Because I left it behind. At Murasakibara's."

Takao rolled onto his front so he could half drape himself over Shintarō's chest, so he could tuck his head under Shintarō's chin. Midorima felt his raven-haired love swallow hard. He couldn't take the suspense. He wanted to get everything out in the open and yet at the same time he didn't want to tell him anything.

"Why --" There was no chance Takao was going to let this go. He was going to have to tell him everything.

Shintarō sighed in resignation. "Mura-chin is thinking of opening a new restaurant. Separate from the bakery. I'd left my wallet at his place the other night when you and the children went over to your parents for dinner. Akashi was kind enough to return it to me yesterday when he brought his mother over to the hospital."

Takao was piecing all this information together. "Is Akashi providing the financial backing for the new restaurant?"  

Shintarō nodded. Akashi had given his word. His word was absolute. It was a done deal. He wouldn't back out from helping a friend. Admittedly it wasn't the best timing for the kiseki no sendai's captain. His mother's health problems had materialized suddenly. She'd only recently been hit with the devastating news, but the plans to help Mura-chin open his restaurant had been in the works for some time.

"Are we investing in it too?"

Shintarō couldn't help but smile at the use of the plural pronoun. For years they'd had joint bank accounts, shared portfolios, investment funds, and all manner of combined financial instruments. There were trust funds that had been set up for Shintarō at birth which now listed Kazunari as their sole beneficiary. Takao had access to and legally entitled to half of everything Shintarō owned and yet the hawkeye had continued to think of it as Shintarō's assets even after their nuptials. It was only in the past year, until the advent of children, that Takao had started thinking of it as theirs, and rightfully so.

"Not unless you want to." Shintarō shifted a bit so he could look down at his husband, into those steel blue eyes he knew so well and loved so much.

Takao shook his head vigorously, making Shintarō smile. He knew his hawkeye wouldn't want to partner up in any kind of venture, financial or otherwise, with Akashi.

"I didn't think so." Akashi had more money than a deity. He certainly didn't need Shintarō and Kazunari's help to provide Murasakibara with the fiscal backing he needed to open a restaurant, even one in as swanky a space as Roppongi Hills.

". . . Why were you at Mura-chin's?" He asked quietly.

Shintarō could feel his ears turn pink in embarrassment as the words begrudgingly left him. "He's-teaching-me-to-cook." He'd rumbled through it in the vain hopes that Takao wouldn't catch what he was saying and just drop it.

"Wha--"

Midorima should really know better. Takao was like a dog with a bone. He wasn't going to drop it. "Cooking class," he coughed.

He'd expected Takao to laugh and tease him. Instead, the hawkeye's eyebrows just gathered up together in the middle forming a vertical line at the center that Midorima was sorely tempted to trace with his index finger. "Does Shin-chan not like my --"

"I love your cooking," He jumped in. "I crave your cooking. I'd be lost without it. I look forward to it every night." Shintarō said ardently, in a way that didn't sound like he was talking about Kazunari's culinary skills at all.

"I just thought you might find it helpful sometimes, if I pitched in."

Takao narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. "I thought you said your hands were 'too valuable for such plebeian tasks.'" He said in his best Midorima Shintarō impression. He even pushed imaginary glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

Shintarō cleared his throat the way he did when he was nervous. "There may have been another reason --" It may have been an excuse, Shintarō hated doing things he wasn't good at.

"But why, Shin-chan?"

Midorima was starting to get annoyed with Takao's obliviousness. It was so painfully obvious, but he was going to have to come out and say it, wasn't he. 

"Because I’m in love with you, you idiot." Yup. That pretty much summed up their relationship perfectly.

In the past year, Takao had all but given up his job, a job he loved. He had taken on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities and had done so without a single complaint. He was cooking three meals a day and making snacks and doing a beautiful job of raising their children, without a whole lot of help from his husband. None of this had escaped Shintarō's attention and so he wanted help in any way he could.

Kazunari had taken on the bulk of the work when it came to running their household. Shintarō knew he was limited on time. He couldn't drop everything at the hospital and come running home to help Kazu fold the laundry, but he could take up kitchen duties and make a few meals a week, hopefully. 

They were having a moment. One of those rare moments when Shintarō laid all his cards on the table to the only person he could let his guard down with.

And then that moment ended. Shintarō's stomach grumbled making Takao laugh. It was the gleeful, careless laugh he'd been waiting to hear from his hawkeye all morning.

It was all Kagami's fault really. The smell of frying bacon was wafting through the air vent which was surprising given that the master bedroom wasn't particularly close to their kitchen. 

He knew their friends weren't going to let them sleep in much longer. It was inevitable. Kagami with his rude, American forwardness would come knocking on their door any minute and thoughtlessly interrupt their much needed couple time.

He knew Takao must be hungry too. They'd hardly eaten anything last night before, before . . . well, before they had to leave the restaurant. The one they weren't allowed to go back to.

Shin-chan's ears turned red as he recalled everything else that had happened at that restaurant. He resigned himself to his fate. "I guess, I'd better call Shuzuko and apologize."

"Yeah," Takao smiled dreamily. He wasn't even paying attention. He was looking at his husband like he'd done something heroic, like de-troll a bridge or something. Instead, all he'd done was swallow his considerable pride, call up a friend, admit he was a culinary disaster zone, and ask for help.

"It seems I've been doing that a lot lately," Shintarō observed. "Apologizing to our little sisters." His protruding Adam's apple bobbed down his throat and then back up again. "I guess I should probably wait till later to call her. It's still early. I don't . . . I don't want to interrupt anything."

Takao smiled at his adorable husband. He was making progress with the uncomfortable reality that his baby sister was not so little anymore and that _yes_ , her boyfriend was probably sleeping over. 

"Hmm . . . I could think of a few things, or ten, we could do to pass the time," he said, taking his Shin-chan's plump lower lip between his own lips and sucking on it suggestively. Midorima groaned appreciatively. Suddenly he was famished for something else entirely. 

 _Takao has the best ideas,_ he thought as the hawkeye pulled him under the sheets for another round. 

And just as Shintarō had predicted, just like clockwork the other idiot in his life came knocking at his door. "Hey, you two lovebirds decent? Breakfast is ready."

Shintarō had his mouth full, he wasn't going to bother with telling him to go away. They ignored him.

"Oh come on. It's not like I haven't seen it all before. Open up."

Or tried to anyway.

"Don't make me come in there." Takao snorted at Kagami's poor choice of words. 

They made him wait.

"I can hear you two giggling in there."

Just for a bit longer.

"You know I'm a firefighter right? I break down doors for a living." He casually reminded them.

And then they relented.

###

"Hmm," Takao moaned approvingly as he stuffed another forkful of spinach and egg frittata into his mouth. Kagami had cooked them a full American breakfast and had insisted on everyone using Western utensils.

"This is amazing," he said in between mouthfuls. " _You're_ amazing," he said to the Taiga. "You two should sleep over _all the time_."

Predictably and right one cue, Midorima piped in with a disapproving grunt. "Don't even think about it," he warned as Taiga was just about to opened his mouth and take Takao up on his offer.

It was a noisy meal. What with the clang of metal utensils, Nigō under the table begging for scraps, and Takao at his right making obscene, pleasured noises after every bite.

Midorima tried not to be jealous. Part of the reason he'd swallowed his pride and asked Mura-chin for help was because he wanted to make things easier for Takao. Still, the other part of the reason he wanted Mura-chin's help was because he wanted Takao to make those obscene noises over  _his_ cooking. 

"Seriously, Kagami." Takao wriggled his eyebrows. "This is down right orgasmic."

"Takao!" Midorima slammed his fork on the table. "You're making Kuroko uncomfortable," he chided.

"Not all, Midorima-kun," Kuroko responded, placing his hands under his chin. "Please continue," he said to Takao. The Sixth Man was enjoying the spectacle. He knew as well as anyone at the table that Takao was teasing Shintarō. He was so very effective at getting a rise out of the former shooting guard. 

Towards the end of the meal, Kuroko and Kagami cleared their own plates. Takao told them to leave the dishes to him, but the pair ignored him, having their own water fight at the kitchen sink. This left Kazunari and Shintarō alone at the table.

Takao slipped a piece of bacon under the breakfast table to a waiting Tetsu 3, who knew better than to beg for scraps from Shin-chan.

"Are we okay?" Takao asked his husband. All the playfulness he'd exhibited moments earlier in front of their friends was gone.

Shintarō got no enjoyment out of this. He was used to his confident, self-assured husband being the one to reassure _him_ , when he wasn't teasing his light mercilessly.

"Of course we are, idiot."  

* * *

  **AN1:**  I tried to interject humor and fluff into an otherwise serious chapter. Takao can be an idiot sometimes when he lets his irrational jealousy of the Little Emperor run amok. I thought this [official artwork](http://violinic.tumblr.com/post/105854752185) summarized the situation perfectly.

 **AN2:** I would've never come up with the idea of Shin-chan taking clandestine cooking classes. Once again, that [gem of an interview](http://chippokenabokura.tumblr.com/post/105044185388/kuro-fes-interviews-midorima-shintarou) inspired Shin-chan's sudden interest in acquiring culinary skills: 

> Q3: Then, is there anything you would like to improve?
> 
> Midorima: I do think about studying cooking if I have the free time. Since Takao had laughed at me about this before.

I just love how Shin-chan just randomly brings up Takao in his interview answers. It's like the hawkeye is always on his mind. These two are so canon, even if it's never explicitly stated. I wish the interviewer had raised a few follow up questions, instead of moving on to the next subject.

 **AN3:** I agree with you guys that it would've been awesome to have Akashi come and rescue our two damsels in distress. But I think Midorima has _some_ self-preservation instincts. I could just imagine the epic fit Takao would throw if his husband ever gave Akashi a spare key to their penthouse.

Thanks for the kudos, comments, and encouragement. ~~One~~ Two more chapters to go. 


	5. Sweet surrender, what a night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shintarō huffed dramatically before flopping back into his own cushy, massage chair, causing the woman at his feet to yell at him for moving too much.
> 
> "You could've warned me, you know," he whined, still referring to their mother.
> 
> Shuzuko laughed. "You would've made up some excuse not to come. Besides, after last night I thought you deserved a little pay back."

Shintarō left his spouse and children at home so he could go smooth things over with his little sister. His offer to take her to lunch had been scoffed at. She'd said that after last night's non-dinner, she'd lost her appetite for sharing a meal with any member of her immediate family. She was in need of some retail therapy and agreed to meet him in Ginza.

Kuroko, Kagami, and their  _dog_ were still at the penthouse when Shintarō left mid-morning. As much as he had complained that they should "just go home already," he was glad Kazunari had some company and the kids had been so excited to see Nigō when Takao's parents had brought them home.

The children adored Nigō (it seemed like _everyone_  except Shintarō adored Nigō). Of course that meant when the mutt went home, Kazunari would have to deal with the aftermath of a phenomenon Midorima had dubbed Nigō Withdrawal. A syndrome his children seemed to develop whenever they were forced to part ways and bid their teary-eyed farewells to the black and white pup.

He was living on borrowed time. He knew it was just a matter of years before one or both of the children figured out they could just ask their fathers for a pet, and then he'd be in trouble. Keiko-chan seemed fond of cats, especially little white ones with red bows, yellow button noses, and no mouths. He hoped she didn't ask for a feline, then again he wasn't particularly fond of canines either.

He was surprised Takao, who for years couldn't stop yammering about getting a four-legged companion, had gone all mum on the subject now that they had children.

###

"What is _she_ doing here," he protested. "And why didn't you _warn_ me?" Shintarō whisper-hissed to his little sister who sat in the overstuffed, leather massage chair next to his own.

He'd agreed to a pedicure, but he'd drawn an absolute, non-negotiable line at nail polish, even the clear kind. After some contemplation, Shuzuko had settled on a violent shade of pink ridiculously entitled  _Fu Fu Fuchsia_. A color his daughter would've adored.

Shintarō tried to keep his voice down. He was all too cognizant of the eavesdropping pedicurists. He could tell the woman working at his feet was none too pleased with him at the moment judging by how hard she was scrubbing the bottom of his foot with a pumice stone.

She'd been annoyed with him ever since he'd announced that he was better at her job than she was. Perhaps he should have reconsidered making the remark aloud after she'd accidentally nipped him given that she had been wielding a sharp instrument and sporting a murderous glint in her eye.

He hadn't the foggiest idea what she was scrubbing so hard at. It wasn't like he had anything so uncouth as a callus on the soles of his feet. Kazunari, on the other hand, could benefit from a visit to the nail salon. His eyes weren't the only thing hawkish about him. Shintarō still had that scab on his shin from a razor sharp toenail.

 _Really_ , Shintarō couldn't understand what the woman was getting all worked up about. It was the honest truth. He'd been taking care of his own nails since he'd picked up a basketball. _Thank you very much_.

No one had nicer nail beds than Midorima Shintarō. There was nary a uncut cuticle or anything as unseemly as a hangnail on any of his ten pristine digits. He was the very last person on earth in need of a mani-pedi. He was only doing this to appease his little sister.

He was grateful Shuzuko, unlike every other member of his family, didn't hold grudges for very long. _No one_ , absolutely _no one_ , could hold a grudge like their mother could. If holding grudges were an Olympic sport, the woman would have a built-in trophy case full of gold medals.

It didn't hurt that Midorima Shuzuko was excessively fond of her onii-chan and could never stay mad at him for very long. Still, she wasn't above exerting a little revenge from him for what she'd referred to as an applauding display of hypocrisy.

He'd already apologized to his little sister for siding with their parents last night, but he wasn't sure how he felt about this Haru fellow, or his little sister dating in general, to be honest.

They were in one of Ginza's most exclusive salons, one of their mother's favorite haunts. The woman in question was getting her roots done by her trusted, long-time colorist not far from where the pedicure station was located. Not that Midorima Sazuna would ever deign to set foot outside her enormous house with her roots showing. 

Shuzuko gave her big brother an innocent smile that convinced no one. He didn't believe it for a second. He knew she'd dragged him down here on purpose.

Shintarō huffed dramatically before flopping back into his own cushy, massage chair, causing the woman at his feet to yell at him for moving too much.

"You could've warned me, you know," he whined, still referring to their mother.

Shuzuko laughed. "You would've made up some excuse not to come. Besides, after last night I thought you deserved a little pay back."

Shintarō stayed quiet, feigning preoccupation with his new phone. The old one had cracked beyond repair when Takao had accidentally knocked over the table out on the terrace, sending their clothes and Midorima's phone flying. At the time, they had both been too preoccupied to notice or care.

He'd picked up a new phone (the exact same model as the old one) on his way to meet Shuzuko at the salon and was intermittently transferring phone numbers from one phone to the next. The spotty-faced teenager at the electronics store had managed to save all his pictures, but the contacts list had not been saved on his SIM card. Shintarō couldn't brush off the feeling he'd been dubbed an idiot, by some neophyte, junior sales clerk. 

"She just sort of showed up at my door step this morning, breakfast in hand," she informed her brother.

"Really?" That didn't sound like their mother _at all_ , that sounded almost conciliatory.

"Yup. Haven't been able to shake her off since."

Shintarō chanced a surreptitious glance at the woman in question. From where he was sitting, he couldn't hear her over the sound of various hairdryers, but he could tell by her facial expressions and from the way her colorist was struggling to keep a straight face that she was voicing her displeasure over last night's fiasco. She was probably telling him all about that ungrateful restaurant and her even more ungrateful daughter. The man, who clearly knew which side his bread was buttered, was no doubt providing a sympathetic ear.

"It was really early too. Gave one of my roommates a fright when she opened the door and there she was."

Shintarō dropped all pretenses and his new phone on his lap as Shuzuko continued to recount the bizarre events of this morning. _Really, who was this woman?_

"Of course, poor Haru had to hide in my room the whole time," she confided.

Shintarō clutched both arm rests with a vice like grip, causing the woman below to yell at him to stop tensing up.

" -- That's when you called." Shuzuko continued prattling on with her story, blissfully unaware of her brother's discomfort.

Without knowing it, she'd lost her audience. Her brother that is, the women at their feet were still enraptured, listening intently to her story. They were hanging on her every word. Shintarō, on the other hand, was preoccupied with other thoughts.

He hated him. He hated this Haru guy. He was a scoundrel. Shintarō was convinced of this. How dare he date his sweet innocent, little sister and sleep over and, and do _things_ to her.

For his own sanity, he decided to tune her out and went back to toying with his new phone. 

Shintarō had planned on paying for their mani-pedis and whatever the hell it was that their mother had gotten done to her hair (as far as he could tell she looked exactly the same), except Sazuna beat him to it. Producing a platinum card with the quickness of a ninja wielding a shuriken.

"This was fun," she mused. "We should do this more often." 

Shintarō coughed into his fist and his sister feigned interest in a display of nail polishes near the cash register.

"Shall we continue?" She said, undeterred in the slightest by her children's less than enthused reactions.

###

Shintarō was spent in more ways than one by the time he reached the forty-second floor of his building. The tsundere was certainly no stranger to retail establishments. He could shop till he dropped like the best of them. But he was no match for Midorima Sazuna. Spending the day with his mother in her natural habitat (the high-end shops at Ginza) was always exhausting. 

"Daddy!" Keiko-chan cried out excitedly as the ding of the elevator announced the arrival of her father. She jumped off the couch, ran to the step preceding the genkan and proceeded to make grabby hands at her father. Her socked little toes were curled, gripping the edge of the step in barely contained anticipation. 

Their overnight guests had gone home, Shintarō happily noted. He could tell from the missing pairs of sneakers in the genkan and the blissful lack of barking.

He kicked off his loafers, rummaged through several large department store bags before finding the one he was looking for and proceeded to pick up his little girl who was waiting not so patiently and not very quietly for him to carry her.

He dropped the package on the couch next to Kazunari and balancing Keiko on his hip leaned forward to peck his spouse on the lips. Kichiro who was sitting on Takao's lap and did not appreciate being sandwiched between his fathers protested vehemently. Shintarō rubbed his son's downy head and planted a kiss hello on the pouty infant's forehead.

Takao, who recognized the familiar, toy shop packaging instantly, laughed. "Shin-chan, you shouldn't have," he exclaimed as he unwrapped the presents and pulled out a porcelain doll and a plush toy hamster from a popular children's morning television show.

Kichiro, who had been chewing on a finger puppet, dropped the now sopping wet bridge troll in favor of putting his new toy hamster in his mouth.

Keiko-chan instantly made grabby hands for the doll and Shintarō tried not to feel replaced. To his satisfaction, she didn't ask to be put down, she still wanted him to carry her. She pressed the doll's silky dark tresses to Daddy's lips so Shintarō could kiss her hello as well. Shintarō obliged, but only because it made Keiko beam with happiness and that's all he wanted, really.

He chanced a glance over to his spouse. He'd hoped Kazunari hadn't caught the silly little exchange, but that love-struck, goofy look on the hawkeye's face told him he'd seen everything and so much more.

Embarrassed, Shintarō felt the heat of an accompanying blush spread down his neck. He adjusted his glasses, a tell-tale sign he didn't like the attention.

"They're from my mother," he explained needlessly. Not because the hawkeye hadn't figured this out on his own (Grandma Midorima's specialty was showering the kids with presents), but more to deflect Takao from looking at Shintarō like he was something precious.

Shintarō cleared his throat. "I did buy you something," he said, because he didn't want Takao to feel left out.

"Oh? Where is it?"

Shintarō cocked his head back towards the pile of shopping bags at the footstep preceding the genkan.

"It's for, _um_ , later," he added clearing his throat again and feeling a renewed, violent flush as he thought of the gauzy, see-through little number in midnight black.

While his mother and his sister had been cooing over a luxury handbag with bamboo handles from a Florentine fashion house that bore the last name of its famous designer, Shintarō had snuck off. He'd told them he was going to look at the men's shoe section on the second floor when instead, he'd pop into the upscale lingerie shop next door.

He needn't have bothered with this trumped up excuse. His mother and sister had been so enamored with the handbag that they had paid him no heed. Midorima Sazuna and Midorima Shuzuko collected designer handbags the way more virtuous women collected alms for the poor, _religiously_. 

By the time he'd returned, having already hidden his purchase and its ubiquitous store packaging inside the multitude of shopping bags he was already carrying, they'd each bought the handbag for themselves. They never even asked him about the umpteenth pair of horsebit loafers - Shintarō's own Italian luxury weakness - he'd bought to lend credence to his cover story, _of course_.

In all fairness, he _was_ in the market for a new pair of loafers after Nigō had treated his footwear like a fire hydrant. Shintarō had gotten a sopping surprise when he'd stepped into his shoes in the genkan this morning. 

Takao must've taken pity on his awkward spouse because he patted the seat cushion, silently asking him to sit down beside him. Shintarō plopped down next to his husband. Suddenly, he felt the urgent need to be as close to him as possible and Kazu must have picked up on the vibe because he smiled at him and shifted so that their hips and thighs were touching.

Midorima settled Keiko-chan and her new doll on his lap, before grabbing the large book Takao had been reading to the children when he'd come in. The book was meant for small hands, so it had a hard cover and stiff, cardboard pages that couldn't be torn off in the excitement of recounting this riveting story.

To be honest, Shintarō didn't get the appeal of this particular tale. He thought the plot was entirely predictable and the antagonist's motivations seemed manufactured and unrealistic, but this was his children's new favorite story so he and Takao were condemned to read it over and over again incessantly like a pair of lost souls in Dante's inferno, until they fell in love with something else.

For his part, Kazunari gathered three, felt billy goats of increasing size that had somehow ended up on the floor by his feet. He rescued the discarded bridge troll from the crevice between the seat cushions where his son had flung him in favor of his new toy hamster, having all too clear an idea of how the woebegone finger puppet had gotten lost the first time.

When all four finger puppets where in place, Shintarō began reading the story giving each character its own silly voice while Takao acted it out with his hands causing their children to giggle and squeal like it was the first time they'd heard this riotous tale of _Three Billy Goats Gruff_.

###

Shintarō made dinner for his family for the first time that night. He was extremely nervous, even though he'd kept it simple. Murasakibara had shown him how to make donburi. _No one can screw up donburi, it's foolproof_ , he'd assured him. Shintarō must've been worse than a fool because Mura-chin had vastly overestimated the good doctor's kitchen abilities.

While Takao had ranted and raved that it was the best donburi he'd ever tasted, hands down -- even helping himself to seconds. The children were tougher, more honest critics.

Keiko-chan had stuck her tongue out and pushed her meal away while making a face. If it hadn't been for Midorima's lightning-fast reflexes, the pink, kitty-shaped melamine bowl would've come crashing down making an even bigger mess of the floor below her.

Kichi-chan, who had a bottomless pit for a tummy and who normally ate almost anything without complaint (even natto), had spit out the first bite Takao had spoon fed into his mouth even though it had been delivered there in airplane fashion.

Pretend airplanes were more fun when Uncle Ryōta did them, anyway. Kise always underwent safety checks before "lift off" and made the spoon go through "turbulence" which lent an air of authenticity to the process.

Takao had tried to tell Shin-chan that the kids were probably not hungry because they ate a big lunch. He left out the part about how Taiga had cooked it and it had been a mouth-watering feast of gastronomical delights.

Of course, the kids didn't back up their father's story. When Takao placed bite-sized pieces of plain puffed wheat on the trays of their respective high chairs, they devoured them like they'd been dipped in sugar. And Kichiro had even held his hand out for more.

###

Later, much later, when the children were sound asleep in their own rooms, Takao sat at the center of their large bed surrounded by empty shopping bags, colorful tissue paper, and other wrappings as he went through Shin-chan's purchases looking for his present.

The contents of the bags had turned out to be boring things, mostly practical (though certainly not cheap) clothes for Kazunari and the children. Shin-chan liked to buy Kazunari "normal" clothes because he was adamant that if left to his own devices, his other half dressed himself like he was a colorblind Harajuku teen out on a Sunday stroll.

Takao was convinced that Shin-chan had no appreciation for fashion forward pieces which was why his half of the closet was filled with the same old-man clothes he'd liked to wear back in high school - sweater vests and button downs and trousers.

"Shin-chan. Where are you hiding it?" Takao asked when his freshly bathed and entirely delectable husband came out of their enormous _en suite_ bathroom wearing nothing but a towel loosely wrapped around his narrow hips and a toothbrush in his mouth.

"Hiding what?" Shintarō mumbled around the toothbrush, not bothering to take it out of his mouth.

He felt his cheeks flush, worried he'd been discovered, worried Takao had somehow caught wind of what he'd been keeping from him, of the pair of refundable first class plane tickets to the Maldives and prepaid reservations to a private, stilted bungalow set on top of a lagoon at an exclusive resort.

He'd been saving those since their wedding anniversary which had come and gone in June with Shintarō unable to take the time he needed off of work. He was hoping to whisk Takao away soon. Now that he was done with his research paper and the hubbub of summer vacations among his colleagues with school-aged children had died down, he anticipated being able to cobble together five or six consecutive days off. He'd have to make sure his in-laws were available too to watch the children.

"The present you bought me," he said fruitlessly holding another shopping bag upside down so that its contents spilled onto the bed.

Shintarō smiled wolfishly around the handle of his toothbrush before sauntered over to Kazunari. The confident sway of his hips, his carefully measured footfalls were all laced with the promise of seduction. Shintarō had forgotten all about that saucy little strip of silky gossamer he'd purchased. He was going to pull it off of Takao with his teeth.

He picked up the glossy shopping bag where the sales clerk had placed his new Italian loafers - he'd stealthily hidden his covert purchase inside the unassuming confines of a shoe box. But to his horror, when Shintarō picked up his purchase all he found was a velvet dust bag covered with interlocking "Gs" and inside that dust bag was a similarly-logoed handbag with bamboo handles, the same handbag his sister and mother had been admiring.

Shintarō let his toothbrush lay where it fell.

He called his sister first, clinging to the hope it was her handbag he was holding and ignoring the fact that it was bedtime and he could hear Haru grumbling in the background.

Shuzuko, oblivious to her brother's predicament, sounded confused that he had her mother's handbag.

 _Fuuuuuck! Fuuuuuck! Fuuuuuck!_ Shintarō was not one to curse but, _Fuuuuuck! Not again_ , he thought.

And then he called the woman who birthed him.

"Yes. I have your shoes." She confirmed, sounding disappointed. She must have assumed Shuzuko had taken her new handbag and was going to pop over to her place tomorrow morning to pick it up. "Wait, there's something else inside the box -"

"No! Don't open it."

". . . Are these mine?"

Shintarō could just picture his mother blinking perplexedly as she balanced the receiver between her ear and her shoulder and held the object in question up in front of her with both hands. " . . . Did you buy these for me?"

 _Ugh. Gross._  " _No_. Why the hell would I buy my mother panties? Why would you think that? They're not even your size."

"Well it's not like you know any women," she defended herself haughtily. "Are they for your sister? They wouldn't fit her either. They're too big. And frankly, I don't think I want her walking around wearing something like this. They're a bit . . . provocative. What would the paramedics think if she got into an accident?"

Leave it to his mother to worry about what the paramedics would think in this pretend scenario. "Wait. There's something else in the bag --"

" _No!_ Don't! Stop it! Just stop what you're doing --" Nothing good was going to come of his mother's rummaging.

"Shiruko-flavored, edible lotion?" She was reading the label like she was pronouncing new words, like she'd never heard of a such a thing. In fairness, most of it was in French.

There was a long pause on her end of the line, so long that Shintarō was beginning to think she'd hung up on him. He should be so lucky. ". . . These are for Kazunari aren't they." It wasn't a question.

" . . . " At this point, Shintarō thought it was best to just stay quiet. After all, there was nothing he could do to stem the tide of the verbal onslaught that was coming.

"Honestly Shintarō. I don't understand why you and Kazunari insist on involving me in your little romantic escapades."

Shintarō placed as much distance as possible between his poor, beleaguered ear and the banshee in the phone receiver so that he could still hear her, but somewhat muffle the brunt of her fury.

Takao was no help at all. He was rolling on their bed laughing. He said he didn't need his underwear back, this was present enough.

Shintarō interjected with appropriately contrite apologies whenever his mother paused for breath, which was not as often as one would think. The woman had impressive lungs.

That trip to the Maldives couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

  **AN:** I know I told you guys this would be the last chapter, but I've got ~~one~~ more ~~chapter~~ to write.  


	6. Spinning my head around and taking my body under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most people would assume Midorima had worn down Takao's defenses until the high spec kareshi finally relented and went out with the tsundere, but Nakatani knew better. He knew them. He knew their story and had been there from its inception.

Shintarō sat on the bleachers next to his former coach. The old man's weathered face was showing its age and his hair was more salt than pepper nowadays, but he'd never lost that air of authority he had always had about him. 

Nakatani had intimidated the hell out of Midorima and Takao when they were younger. If Midorima were being honest, the man still made him a little nervous, like he'd have to run laps if he said the wrong thing or something. This was preposterous on so many levels, but mostly because the now surgeon was in his early thirties and in reality Miyaji had been the one to mete out all the punishments. To date, pineapples were still Midorima's least favorite fruit. 

Shūtoku's former ace had a fussy baby on his lap, or rather, was trying to keep him there. The wriggling tot was screeching like a barn owl. He was being most unhelpful. One of the first things Shintarō had discovered upon becoming a father was that children were moving targets. They rarely stayed still for very long and this particular child was trying to wriggle his way out of his father's lap at the moment. He was also protesting loudly. Nakatani, who'd never had offspring of his own, but knew enough to recognize the telltale signs of a tantrum when he saw one had promptly given the irate infant back to his father.

Nakatani had excellent self-preservation instincts; he would've survived Vesuvius. Takao would've suggested they go on a hike ( _C'mon Shin-chan, it'll be fun_ ).

Midorima wasn't dwelling on the now infamously dubbed Great Lockout, _not at all_. Not when all their friends were snickering at them and he got a special call from Daiki, who hadn't been seen by anyone in quite some time, yet knew all about the recent mishap.

Midorima would've blamed that idiot redhead. He'd say that gossip spreads like fire, or rather like firefighters. Except he knew for a fact that for all his quiet, spectral non-presence Kuroko had a big mouth. 

They were watching a friendly game of basketball in a recreational league Takao liked to play in. Shintarō sometimes joined him on the court, but he was sitting this game out. He was scheduled to perform a delicate surgical procedure the next morning and he didn't want to risk any kind of injury to his left hand. Takao liked to joke that he had two princesses and that Princess Shin-chan was much more a delicate flower than Princess Keiko. 

Shintarō had had the pre-op consultation in his office earlier that week with the patient and his family. The man had brought his elderly parents who were understandably wrecked over the diagnosis and the upcoming surgery. The patient's father had glommed to a photograph (a formal portrait of the Midorima family) on Shintarō's desk. He had expressed _concerns_.

Shintarō tried not to flare his nostrils as he went through the litany of his many qualifications and accomplishments in what could only be described as strained patience. He underscored the fact that he was one of only three surgeons in the country who'd ever performed the difficult operation and had had the highest success rate of all of them. Nonetheless, if the man still believed that having a (phenomenal) husband with whom he was raising two (adorable) children was a factor in selecting a specialist, by all means, he knew for a fact that Dr. Abe in Osaka had a pregnant wife at home. _Idiot._

There were many perks to being an adult (and a highly respected neurosurgeon, at that). He knew for a fact that it did get better. Growing up, he'd lived in fear of his parents finding out that their son was different. Then they found out, or rather he had been forced to tell them after his father, in a rare show of interest, had tried to set him up with a colleague's daughter.

It had been awful, _for a while_. But it had also been liberating. He was going to build the life he wanted with Kazunari, regardless. And then, to his surprise, they'd gotten over it and he let them back in. They were a family again and though he wouldn't exactly refer to them as happy, they were certainly a more honest one and that was to everyone's benefit.  

He would no longer hide who he was and he certainly wouldn't apologize for it, _to anyone_. The patient's father had come to his senses. He'd even apologized to Midorima afterwards and blamed his bigotry on the stress of the high-stakes situation. But there had been others who hadn't and Shintarō was perfectly okay with that. He'd never been a people-pleaser and sometimes that inured to his benefit. The consultation continued with Shintarō explaining the mechanics of the procedure using the model of the human brain on his desk and concluded with the procedure being scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Midorima rummaged through the leather messenger bag he and Takao had turned into a shared diaper bag. Kichiro was being fussy and Midorima was looking for something (anything) to quiet him down. Takao was so much better at this than he was, he thought looking down at Kichiro apologetically. He handed his son a toy hamster he'd fished out of the bag which the infant proceeded to chuck at his father's head with impressive accuracy almost immediately thereafter.

Midorima's eyes widened in surprise. Fatherly pride and promising visions of watching his son play on a basketball team quickly filled his thoughts. He wondered how soon was too soon to start on the fundamentals. For now, the only dribbling Kichiro was doing was all over his father's designer button down shirt. Shintarō wiped the squirming infant's frowny mouth with a burp cloth. 

Keiko-chan was sitting on the bleacher one-step below, leaning against one of her father's long, trouser-clad legs. She was wearing a tutu. Midorima would rather not get into the specifics of why Keiko-chan was wearing a tutu. He was just grateful he'd been able to get the stubborn young miss to wear a pair of fleece-lined, pink-striped leggings underneath because the Autumn air was much too crisp to be prancing around in a tutu.

Riko was regaling the toddler with a game of cat's cradle. Keiko was giggling at the different shapes Aunt Riko could make between her hands. It was amazing, Shintarō thought, how his children, who had a playroom full of toys at home, could so easily be entertained with a something as simple as a piece of string.

Kichiro might have also liked this game, if he'd been in a more receptive mood. As it was, Midorima had seen thunderclouds that were less ominous than his brooding infant.

While Shintarō played the role of spectator and supportive spouse, the father of his children was hustling on the court. He was in full point guard mode, dribbling the ball like he owned it and shouting orders at his teammates like they'd actually listen to him. Takao was only fooling himself. There were too many chiefs on their team for that to work. It was like herding a clowder of preternaturally talented cats down the court. Extremely gifted, but still  _cats_.

It was moments like these that allowed Midorima to admire his handsome spouse from afar. Kazunari had not only been a high spec kareshi, but he was a high spec husband as well. Shintarō's gaze lingered a little too long. Takao caught him staring and winked saucily at the tsundere with his most smug, self-satisfied smile. Kazunari looked very much like the hawk who'd swallowed the canary. 

The car ride home would ensure that the kids were sound asleep by the time they got home. Then Shintarō was going to wipe that smirk off Takao's face, right up against the shower wall. The man was equal parts insufferable and irresistible.  

Takao was wearing a red headband to keep the fringe out of his eyes and Shintarō knew it was only a matter of time before his husband started borrowing them from their daughter. What he didn't know was whether it was going to be a mutual, amicable exchange, like trading cards, or whether he'd hear incessant complaints about Papa taking her things without asking.

Shintarō settled on bouncing a baby boy on his leg (the one that wasn't propping up his daughter) the way Kazunari sometimes did. This seemed to appease the tiny tyrant for a little while, long enough to allow the tsundere to continue his conversation with his coach.

"So, how are the kids old man?" Shintarō inquired.

Nakatani had yet to retire. There was a pool among Shūtoku's former players as when the old man would finally put down his clipboard and whistle. Shintarō didn't think it was ever going to happen. Coaching was the man's life, not just his livelihood. And while he also taught English at the school, his real passion was with those kids on the court.

"You've probably heard this from Takao, but this year's crop is no good." The old man sounded exasperated. Shintarō wasn't worried. Shūtoku was still a venerated veteran, one of the three kings of Tokyo. They weren't in danger of losing that hard-earned title, not on Nakatani's watch.

"It's not like when the two of you played on the team. I've yet to find another pairing like yours."

Shintarō blushed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He honestly hadn't been fishing for compliments. And while he could be brash and arrogant and could trash talk like the best of them on the court among his friends, he never did learn to take a compliment from one of his superiors. It certainly wasn't something he'd hear from one of his parents.

Of the two of them, Takao spoke to Nakatani more often. Takao was a sports writer and so naturally he talked to all the coaches. But he would always have a soft spot for Nakatani.

After they had sent out the invitations to their destination wedding, there had also been a mysterious white, unmarked envelope delivered to Nakatani's cubby in the teacher's lounge at Shūtoku. It just happened to contain round trip airline tickets. The seat on both flights had been in the same row as Takao's family and Shintarō was convinced sitting next to Kazumi (who like Takao before her had also been a terrible pupil in Nakatani's English class) was more torture than treat.

The league Takao played in was an amateur league full of teams made up of paunchy middle aged and not-quite-middle-aged men. Nothing like the fit and nimble phenoms (their circle of friends) that populated their roster. Yet their team was a disaster of sorts. At present,  they ranked dead last.

One would think that a team packed to the gills with some of the most talented former players to ever grace the sport would have the championship clinched from the very beginning, yet here they were circling the drain and on the brink of elimination.

The problem was that they weren't in high school anymore. And while most of them were still in prime condition (too vain or too competitive to let themselves go), they all had wives, husbands, significant others, children, careers, outside interests or any manner of things that tied them up.

No one had seen Aomine on the court since Momoi had been in her first trimester and now that the baby was born they were lucky to see him at all. Apparently, the only one who could beat him was Momoi. And beat him she would, if he so much as thought of shirking her with baby duty while he went out to play with his friends.

Kagami could not be counted on because he sometimes worked nights and if Kagami didn't show up that meant Kuroko was a no show too. Midorima's occupation also sometimes resulted in excused absences. Plus, whether or not he and Takao could both play depended on whether they could corral one of their sisters to come along and babysit their tots.

Sometimes the combination of talent that showed up was all wrong. One time they had a team made up entirely of point guards. Everyone kept passing the ball to each other, the final score was anemic, and the number of shot clock violations had to have set some kind of record.

Most of the time however, they were lucky enough to get five people on the court. They would be fortunate to get in a single substitution. Needless to say there were a lot of forfeits and a lot of on-the-court disagreements as to who would be covering whom and what position they would be playing.

Tonight's line up so far consisted of Kazunari, Kasamatsu, Kiyoshi and Kise. Ryōta couldn't even be counted on to be in the country most of the time, though tonight he'd managed to make a guest appearance much to Takao's glee and delight.

For reasons Shintarō could not explain, the hawkeye was one of the few people he knew who actually liked fraternizing with the bubbly blonde. Kise was like a pill; he could only be taken in small doses and came with plenty of unpleasant side-effects. As far as Shintarō was concerned, he'd like as much time in between hearing the words "Midorimacchi" as possible.

Ryōta had also forgotten his uniform. He happenned to have already been wearing a v-neck undershirt beneath his button down and had borrowed a pair of swim shorts Shintarō had found crumpled up in the back of his trunk, a mislaid remnant from their summer vacation. Luckily they were Shintarō's understated black ones and not Kazunari's loud, construction-cone orange ones. Midorima hated those.

Kise was shorter than his Teikō teammate, but their waist size was about the same. The shoe situation, however, could not be helped. He was playing in black dress socks and oxfords. _Idiot_. No wonder he became a pilot, his head was already in the clouds. To Shintarō chagrin, the pretty moron looked better than anyone had a right to in that ridiculous get up. Kise inspired the universal urge to kick him.

Having two point guards and no power forward meant Kasamatsu and Takao would be fighting for the point guard position all night, though Midorima knew exactly what his meddlesome husband had in mind when he'd doggedly persuaded (begged) Kaijō's hotheaded former captain to come along. Kazunari was not only playing basketball on the court, he was also playing Cupid.

In Midorima's highly-informed opinion Takao should just butt out and mind his own business. Playing matchmaker was a tricky endeavor under the best of circumstances. But this was one tough row to hoe.

For starters Kise had never publicly acknowledged to anyone his attraction to men, though it was an open secret among their group. Some of the more mean spirited among them (Aomine) had even passed around a collection plate the proceeds of which would go to Kise's coming out party. If and when that joyous occasion came to fruition.

Kasamatsu had his own hangups. Though he and Kise had been friends in high school, he lost touch with everyone at Kaijō when he went off to uni. Years later when he came back, he had a wife and kid. One kid turned into two kids and the wife turned into an ex-wife, one who had recently become engaged to remarry.

It was fair to say that Kasamatsu was carrying around more baggage than a luggage carousel at Narita. The whole experience had left him embittered and he hadn't been a sweet guy to begin with. _And really, hadn't this man been through enough?_ Shintarō didn't see why Takao wanted to add to the man's suffering by throwing Ryōta into the mix. As far as Midorima could tell, Kise was as irritating as ever.

His husband had plans for the Iron Heart's heart too, though Kazumi had ruined them by not showing up tonight. Even so, it was hard to dissuade Takao when he got an idea in his head, no matter how ill-conceived. Again, Midorima was of the opinion that setting a friend up with Kazumi was more punishment than prize.

Izuki completed the trifecta of point guards when he'd shown up, fifteen minutes late, no less. The Eagle Eye and the Hawkeye were birds of a feather, even if they kept bumping into each other on the court. They often traded terrible puns. Needless to say Takao considered himself hilarious. Back when they were finalizing the adoption papers, Takao liked to tell everyone they were _expecting_. People would give them the most confused looks and Takao would laugh in their faces. It was mortifying.  

The game was going abysmally. As the only player who could assume any position, Kise was having to compensate for the fact that there was no power forward and no shooting guard. Arguably, there was not much of a center either. Judging by how much limping Kiyoshi was doing on the court, his bum knee was acting up again. The opposing side had already picked up on the fact that Kise was everywhere and were double teaming him. 

Still, even from afar the over-emotional blonde managed to get on Midorima's nerves when he executed a Perfect Copy of Shintarō's trademark three-point shot on a roaring pass from Kazunari, no less - a thing of beauty that somehow managed to dodge two defenders. It wasn't their trump card, but it was still difficult to watch. It should have been _him_ out there on the court receiving Kazunari's passes, not that idiot drama queen. Seriously, Midorima's infant son didn't cry as often as Kise Ryōta.

When Shintarō was younger, he felt like the only one who was attracted to other boys. He felt different from everyone else. But then he'd met Takao and though it was far from love at first sight, much to his surprise his affections were reciprocated, _and how_. As he grew older he learned to take a more discerning eye on other people's relationships. On the court friendships like Kuroko and Kagami's had blossomed into something more in private settings. The same was true of Himuro and Murasakibara. He wondered how many other people were like Kise, afraid to be honest with themselves.

It was getting colder in the gym. After bundling up an uncooperative Kichiro in a basketball themed hoodie (Takao's choosing), Shintarō handed a tiny, kitten-soft white cardigan to Aunt Riko so she could put it on his little princess. The cashmere cable knit sweater had been a gift from Grandma Midorima and knowing his mother, those were real pearls Aunt Riko was fastening through the buttonholes.

Riko's father and Coach Nakatani had played basketball together. They had both been on the national team and much like Takao, Riko's father had invented an excessively friendly nickname for his teammate.

Shintarō had almost fallen off the stands the first time he'd heard someone refer to their Coach as "Ma-Boy."

He didn't know if that was where the similarities between their relationships ended. The extent of Aida Kagetora and Nakatani Masaaki's friendship was anyone's guess. While Riko's father went on to marry Riko's mother, Coach Nakatani had remained a confirmed bachelor for life.

The next time Shintarō looked up Takao was standing near the free throw line, the ball casually wedged in the space between the inside of his elbow and his rib cage. Shintarō shifted to the edge of the bleacher, quickly scanned over his beloved with medically trained eyes.

The point guard's stance was casual. He was at ease, his feet spaced slightly apart and planted flatly on the court. With his free hand, he fisted the collar of his jersey, pulled it over his lips wiping the sweat off his philtrum. It was a familiar gesture Shintarō had seen him make a thousand times over during games. He wasn't bleeding, he didn't look hurt, and Shintarō allowed himself to breath a silent sigh of relief.

On more than one occasion he'd been called up to render first aid during one of these "friendly" games of basketball. Though thankfully never on Kazunari, because then Shintarō would have to be restrained, lest he pummel whichever clumsy, inelegant bastard had caused the blow.

In stark contrast to Takao's calm demeanor and only several centimeters away was his hotheaded, choleric teammate arguing heatedly with the ref over whether a personal foul or a flagrant foul had taken place. He was getting so agitated his face was starting to resemble a tomato in color and in puffed up cheeks. If he kept it up, Kasamatsu was going to get ejected from the game for sure and then they'd really be in trouble.

Kise, who'd never made a good decision in his life, was moseying on over to see what all the fuss was about. Shintarō just hoped the happy idiot washed Kasamatsu's footprint off the seat of his swim shorts before he returned them.

A frustrated Kichiro reached for his father's hand. "Just a minute," Shintarō told him as he gabbed a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of the diaper bag. He rubbed it contents over his own hands and allowed them to air dry. His son was about as patient as his husband. He wasn't going to like the taste, but it was better than exposing his infant to more germs. 

"When I saw the two of you on the court the first time, I knew I had something special," Nakatani began reminiscing, after a lull in their conversation. "Well, I already knew _you_ were special. The first time I saw you sink a three-pointer in that Teikō uniform. I knew I had to persuade you to come to Shūtoku. I didn't want you to slip through my fingers the way Teppei did. I began recruiting you almost immediately. But Kazunari . . . Kazunari was a pleasant surprise."

Shintarō smiled, Kazunari had been a surprise to him too. He couldn't help the pride that seeped through his bones whenever someone complimented his husband. 

"The first time I saw him puking behind the gym, I thought that was it for the kid. He was going to quit, but he kept showing up to practice." Nakatani said it as if he still couldn't believe it. 

"Takao can be very stubborn." Midorima tried to sound neutral. 

"I think there was more to it than that." Nakatani was not fooled. "And the combination of the two of you together. Nobody saw that coming."

"Well . . ." Shintarō recalled how the seniors had mercilessly teased him and Takao even before either of them had realized there was a spark between them, that there had been a grain of truth in all that ribbing.

"You each made the other a better player. Kazunari would've quit along with all the other first years if he hadn't had that dogged determination to get you to notice him," Nakatani noted. The old man was incredibly perceptive. "And you . . . You were destined to be the ace with or without him, but he made you a better teammate, a better person."

It was true. Takao may not have had Midorima's talent on the court, but he had always been able to go toe-to-toe with him, to humanize him. He'd been the only one who'd been able to put up with Shintarō's more difficult personalty traits and he'd been able to take it as well as he dished it out.

Shintarō still struggled with his inner demons. The lucky items, the sports tape were no longer present (thanks in no small part to Kazunari's endless support and patience when it really mattered). They had vanished by his second year of med school, but the compulsion was still there. The need to control his fate, the strive for perfection still plagued him. There wasn't a day that went by when he didn't think about those things.

Most people would assume Midorima had worn down Takao's defenses until the high spec kareshi finally relented and went out with the tsundere, but Nakatani knew better. He knew  _them_. He knew their story and had been there from its inception. 

"When I was on the national team,  I had a friend very much like Takao," Nakatani admitted. 

"Oh?" Shintarō knew exactly who the man was referring to, but had not expected the sudden confession. He glanced furtively at Riko.  

"It was a different time back then." Nakatani explained. He sighed resignedly, like he had the weight of the world on his slumped shoulders. There was regret in his coach's voice, a missed opportunity, a choice he who've liked to revisit and Shintarō knew that was all the man was ever going to say on that topic.  

"Somethings never change." Midorima commiserated, recalling the events earlier in the week with his patient's father.

"And others do," Nakatani mused, a small smile crossing his lips. He nodded vaguely in the direction of Midorima's dominant left hand, the one the Miracle use to zealously, protectively tape up between games.

Midorima was improvising. He'd finally figured out what had had Kichiro's knickers in a bunch. He'd forgotten the infant's teething ring in the car seat and the keys were in Takao's gym bag in the locker room. Shintarō was letting their son gnaw on his hand instead.

###

Later that night Takao was at the takeout counter of a Thai restaurant they frequented. He was picking up an order of green curry and Singapore noodles while Shin-chan waited in the car with a pair of grumpy, sleepy-eyed children.

They had played janken to see who would leave the car to go get their dinner and as always, Takao had lost. Or rather, he'd won because their kids were crankiest when they were wiped-out exhausted, yet trying their darndest to fight off sleep. He could just imagine the epic wails that were coming out of Shin-chan's luxury sedan right now. They'd probably make the loud din of the busy restaurant sound like an oasis in the middle of the desert in comparison.

He was signing the receipt when he heard his name called out.

"Takao?" The hawkeye hadn't seen Sasaya Akio in ages, but he'd recognize that adenoidal voice anywhere. 

"Sasaya! How have you been, man?" Unlike his Shūtoku teammates, Takao hadn't kept in touch with many of his friends from middle school. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, they'd all sort of disbursed, going to different high schools after the basketball team had disbanded.

"Great, great. You come here often?"

"Yeah. Mostly takeout," Takao answered. "Picking dinner up for my family," he explained, gesturing to the twin paper bags on the counter in front of him. The hostess was diligently stuffing them with wooden chopsticks, disposable napkins, and packets of sriracha, before stapling them shut. "You?"

"Nah, I'm waiting for a table." Akio pulled out a plastic, rectangular restaurant pager from his pocket as if the hawkeye would question the veracity of his story. 

Takao grinned as he recalled the familiar habit. Akio had always been that guy who had something to prove. "What have you been up to?"

"I'm a prosecutor now." The man beamed proudly, standing up a little bit straighter.

Takao laughed. "I'm not surprised." It figured. 

"I read your column." He announced. "It's really good." He added emphatically.

"Oh yeah?" Takao was always surprised when he bumped into a fan. It was a small publication in all honesty, but the readership was growing, especially now that they had an internet presence.

The blog could always be counted on for lively, spirited debate, and sometimes not just from Kise's fan girls. The devotees of the former teen model would come out in droves whenever Ryōta left his two cents in the comments section of a story Takao wrote. Predictably, the conversation would then be derailed into impassioned, desperate pleas for dates and petty jealous squabbles.

Invariably, this drove the hawkeye insane, prompting him to remind the ladies that this was supposed to be a column about  _s_ _ports_ and not a dating forum or a stalker support group. Of course then they'd turn their collective wrath on him, peppering the site with even more non-sports-related comments including, but certainly not limited to (he should be so lucky), colorful insults, wild and baseless speculation about the size of his junk, and crazy conspiracy theories on how he was secretly in love with Kise and that was the real reason for the bee in his bonnet. If they ever caught wind of his fledgling attempts to play matchmaker, they'd flay him.

For all of Kazunari's troubles with Kise's rabid fans, his editor couldn't be happier. The more readers, the more page views, the more advertising dollars was how he'd phrased it.

Takao tugged on the collar of his jersey in hopes of some ventilation. There was too much body heat in the crowded restaurant and he was still overheated from the game.

Akio's eyes widened as if he was just noticing the sweat-rumpled uniform underneath the point guard's faded, though beloved Shūtoku letterman's jacket. "I see you still play," he said.

Kazunari rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, sometimes. It's just a recreational league." They'd gotten killed out there. Their season was effectively over. There was no sugarcoating it. They'd been trounced, by a bunch of old guys too. "We're not very good --"

"Hey," Akio interjected, "whatever happened to that arrogant prick you used to play basketball with?"

Takao laughed. Akio wasn't fooling him. Everyone on their middle school roster knew Shin-chan's name. You didn't get your asses handed to you the way Shin-chan had handed it to them that one time they played Teikō and not remember everything about a guy like that.

Everyone who played on a basketball team when they did knew who Midorima Shintarō was. They knew his number, his height, his shooting range, the exact trajectory of his three-point shots, and they certainly knew his name. Takao and his middle school teammates used to tear out pictures of the kiseki no sendai from those glossy basketball monthlies, tape them up on the wall of the locker room, and throw darts at them. Come to think of it, they hadn't been very nice to his now-friends. Except for Akashi. If given the chance, Takao would still throw darts at Akashi's likeness. 

Takao too could play coy. "You mean Shin-chan?" He asked innocently as he picked up the packages off the counter and nodded his goodbyes to the hostess.

Just then, she interrupted him. "Midorima-sama, you forgot your credit card," she said handing him a black card embossed with his legal name.  

"I married him," he told a stunned into silence Akio.

"It was good seeing you," he said sincerely as he headed out the door with a wide grin on his face, back to the car, back to his ace and their children. 

###

Kazunari woke up to a sniffle and a tiny palm on his cheek. Opening doors still gave their kids trouble. They weren't as smart yet as those velociraptors in that dinosaur movie Takao liked to watch growing up. Shin-chan must've left the door ajar when he'd gotten up earlier to get both of them a bottle of water  _afterwards._  

They'd made it a habit to lock the bedroom door when they didn't want to be disturbed. This wasn't to say they wouldn't immediately stop if they heard an attempt to turn the door knob or if there was a wail of distress over one of the baby monitors. Their son in particular had a knack for this. It was like he timed it for maximum cockblocking efficiency. But mostly, the kids were sound sleepers, _now,_ and _coitus interruptus_ was a rare occurrence in the Midorima household.

"Keiko," he whispered as his little girl came into focus. It was dark in their bedroom, but he could still make out tear-stained chubby cheeks. "What's the matter Kitten?"

He glanced back at Shintarō. The neurosurgeon was fully clothed in his typical, three-piece pajama ensemble (it would've been four pieces if you counted the robe, but even Shin-chan took that off to go to bed). He was curled up on his side with his back facing the hawkeye. Thankfully, he was still asleep.

Takao fumbled around blindly beneath the covers until he found his shorts and managed to pull them on without drawing any attention to what he was doing under there. 

After making himself decent, he sat up on the bed and tried to console his little girl. "Did you have a bad dream?" He spoke in a sweet, cooing tone, soft susurruses he only ever used with the children, or with Shin-chan when he was in an especially teasing mood. 

He didn't want to wake his husband. If Shin-chan didn't have to work in the morning, he would've picked her up and put her in bed between the two of them. Takao didn't want to make a habit out of it, but it wouldn't be the first time one or both of the children slept between them. Truthfully, neither one of them got a good night's sleep when the kids were in bed with them. Keiko-chan tossed and turned and Kichiro liked to kick.

As it was, Shin-chan had to get up in a few hours and so Papa needed to work his magic elsewhere. Shin-chan may have been the one with the medical degree, but Kazunari was adept with mollifying all manner of ailments, from runny noses, to scraped knees, to the ubiquitous boo-boo. 

Takao picked his shirt up off the floor and felt a kink on his right shoulder when he pulled it over his head. He was feeling his age, he was sore from basketball and from that shower he'd taken with Shin-chan when they'd gotten home.

It had been at least nine or ten months since Keiko had had a nightmare. When they had first brought the children home, getting them settled into a nighttime routine had been an enormous challenge. No matter how plush and well-appointed their new home had been, at the time, it was still a strange and unexplored environment for the little ones. Neither one of their children used to slept through the night and Keiko used to wake up screaming. It had been a rough patch in an otherwise wondrous time.

The new surroundings and unfamiliar parents had been disruptive to the children, but they had adjusted. They had adjusted beautifully and in turn the night terrors had subsided. They were replaced with a full night's sleep and bright-eyed children. And so, Takao was surprised to find his little girl upset in the middle of the night like this. He ran his thumb over a soft cheek, impeding the path of a straggling tear drop. 

Keiko let out a rather loud sob when Takao picked up. "Hush, Kitten," he murmured in her ear as he walked out of the room with her and gently closed the door behind him. "We don't want to wake up Daddy. He has to work later today." She buried her face in his neck and he rubbed her back soothingly as he carried her to her room.

Takao removed a bunny rabbit snap-on clip out of Keiko-chan's soft, silky dark hair. She had had two of them on before. He had no idea what had happened to the other one. The kids had zonked out during the car ride home as they were wont to do. He and Shin-chan had each hauled a bag of takeout and a sleeping child upstairs. And while Takao had tried to put a fresh pair of pajamas and a new diaper on an unconscious Kichiro without waking him up, Shin-chan had put their little girl to bed.

The thing was that they were Shin-chan's hair clips and for all the grumbling Shin-chan did about the hawkeye's ever-growing headband collection, the hawkeye owned exactly zero bunny rabbit snap-on clips. They'd been a lucky item at some point (having survived the Great Lucky Item Purge -- back when they needed the money because Shin-chan's dad was being more of a prick than usual -- only because they were of negligible value) and either Shin-chan forgot to remove them when he tucked Keiko in, or the toddler had launched a sleepy protest and he'd decided to just let it be. His husband was such a pushover when it came to the children.

Having picked up Keiko had clued Takao in on the source of her woes. She'd had an accident. He carried her into her meticulously organized walk-in closet which was teaming with clothes in varying shades of pink. Kazunari let Keiko pick out her favorite Ketty-chan sparkly pink princess nightgown before placing her in those transition diapers that pulled up like real underwear.

Shin-chan was fastidious about the orderliness of every square centimeter of their penthouse including the children's rooms, not that he ever broke a sweat doing any of it himself. In truth, Kazunari didn't do it either. They outsourced the cleaning, or rather the OCD problem. But it invariably became Takao's headache when the cleaning lady du jour got fed up with Shin-chan's impossible to please standards and quit. They _always_ quit. Kazunari didn't need the hawkeye to see where Shin-chan got it from. It was a family malady. His in-laws also had trouble keeping employees in their household. 

Keiko's room was fit for a princess. There was a large, toddler-sized dollhouse in the corner with a toy kitchen, miniature appliances, a small table and cupboards chock full of plastic dishware and fake food. Takao thought it was hilarious when she would try to get Shin-chan and all his long limbs to have tea with her inside it. His daughter was a riot. The hawkeye couldn't even begin to recount the incredible and fantastic sights he'd been treated to since they'd started keeping tiny saddle shoes and miniature sneakers in the genkan. 

The two-room abode also had a toy nursery with a wooden rocking chair and a painted crib where the lady of the house kept her stuffed animals. Takao found Keiko-chan's maternal instincts adorable even if she did leave dolls behind all over Tokyo for her fathers to frantically trace back and retrieve in a dolly search and rescue operation that sometimes required the payment of a ransom or a stealth mission to the toy shop to covertly replace a missing hostage.

"There. All taken care of," he told her after he'd replaced the damp linens of her four-poster bed with clean ones. 

He picked her up again and headed towards the large kitchen. The penthouse was beautiful at night. It had an open floor plan and retractable, motorized shades which they rarely closed since they had no need for privacy this high up. The windows which faced west created an expansive cityscape of twinkling lights from the nearby skyscrapers. The ones that faced the ocean gave the illusion of an endless expanse of inky blue. Their home was always quiet and peaceful at this time and for this reason, Kazunari did his best writing in the predawn hours. He also watched game film on mute and engaged in internet flame wars with Kise's fan girls. 

The hawkeye stifled a yawn as he looked at the digital clock on the built-in stainless steel microwave that hung above the range. Shin-chan would be up and getting ready for work in a couple of hours, he noted sleepily. He would be wearing his surgical scrubs, a rare sight and one Takao didn't like to miss. Shin-chan wasn't one of those doctors who wore their scrubs everywhere (the grocery store, the gas station, the movie theater). But today he had an important procedure scheduled first thing in the morning. Takao rarely saw his husband in his standard-issue surgeon's sea-foam green uniform and had only once seen him in full surgical gown. It was back during Shin-chan's residency when Takao had made the mistake of signing up to observe a procedure in the operating theater along with a group of first-year med students. _Never again._ Brain surgery was not for the faint of heart or the full of stomach. 

He pulled a carton out of a stainless steel refrigerator with clear glass double doors dotted with "portraits" -- jumbled scribbles and stray lines of crayon and marker which he was told by the resident artist were drawings of Daddy and Papa and Keiko-chan and Kichi-chan. There was one of Nigō on there too, but Takao couldn't remember which one it was and Keiko always got so offended when he had to ask ( _It's a box._ Pouty face. _I mean, it's a . . . turtle? Wow. What a beautiful turtle!_ ). Kichiro would sometimes contribute his own pieces, but he was not as prolific as his sister.

This was the kitchen art gallery. The larger, permanent collection resided in Kazunari's home office. Sometimes his mini-Monet liked to create her masterpieces in there, hence the reason Kazunari was in the market for a new chesterfield (preferably one that had been pre-treated with a stain guard). Shin-chan liked to accuse him of preserving every napkin or scrap piece of paper their kids had doodled on. But Takao knew better, he'd seen what was framed alongside the fancy diplomas on the walls of Shin-chan's office at work. The neurosurgeon was just as bad, if not worse the hawkeye.

Kazunari warmed up a bit of milk for his daughter on the stove top. He worked one-handed, balancing the clingy toddler on his hip since she refused to be put down. Although the microwave would have certainly be faster, Shintarō had qualms about using it to heat up the children's meals.

Takao generally adhered to Shin-chan's crazy superstitions about child rearing. Of the two of them, Shintarō was by far the more anxious parent and Takao didn't want to add to his anxiety by disagreeing with him, especially over something as silly as how they would heat up milk. But every once in a while, Kazunari put his foot down and Shintarō had no choice but to relent.

With the help of a funnel, he carefully poured the warmed milk into a baby bottle borrowed from Kichiro. For a time, Shin-chan had banished plastic bottles after the BPA-scare. He had tried banning binkies and sippy cups, but that had proved a fool's errand. Even Shin-chan knew his limits. Takao tested the temperature of the liquid on the inside of his wrist, before placing it into small, waiting hands.

Keiko-chan prided herself on being a big girl and had long given up childish things like baby bottles. But some situations were so dire that only a warm bottle of milk would do. Papa understood her perfectly. He smoothed the sweat-damp fringe off her forehead and placed a comforting kiss there.

They had started potty training Keiko at Shintarō's insistence. It was on some timetable or chart or developmental milestone spreadsheet some egghead in a parenting manual had concocted. His husband followed them religiously. Takao had thought she was still a little young, but he went along with it. For the most part she was getting the hang of it. Having a few accidents was to be expected. In fact, Takao was surprised she hadn't woken him up for this reason before.

Takao may not have had Shin-chan's fancy degrees and board certifications or read anywhere near as many articles on parenting, but he was just as much, if not more, an expert on their children. After all, he spent more time with them. And if his daughter was this upset about a bed wetting incident, then they were going to have to revisit this whole potty training business when she as older.

Takao liked to play a game with Keiko in which he'd tell her that she was his baby and she would protest vehemently that she was a big girl and point out that Kichi-chan was the baby, to which Takao would reply that they were both his babies. It was a game that only worked with Keiko-chan because Kichiro didn't give one whit about being called a baby. This would go on forever because Takao loved to tease and he teased because he loved, at least that's what he'd tell Shin-chan whenever he got all pouty about Kazunari tormented him or the children. But tonight wasn't one of those times when he'd play that game. Takao knew when he could tease his little girl and when he'd hurt her feelings.

"There's nothing to cry about," he assured her when they were back in her room, snuggling together under the covers. "It happens to everybody." He had climbed in bed with her, beneath the frilly canopy of pink tulle.

"When I was three times your age," he told her. "I wet my sleeping bag at a friend's sleepover. It was my first sleep over and Grandma and Grandpa Takao had to come bail me out." It had been a rather embarrassing episode, but Takao's parents had pulled through, driving 45-minutes each way to pick him up. None of his friends ever found out the real reason Kazunari wasn't there for breakfast the next morning.

Keiko's eyelids were starting to flutter as Takao serenaded her with a lullaby. The children _loved_ when Papa sang to them. Papa had a great singing voice. Takao suspected Shin-chan loved it too, but he was less vocal about it. She was starting to doze off and Kazunari was trying to decide whether he should just sleep there or move his arm out of the way and head back to his own bed.

That's when they both felt it. That's when the first tremor hit. Seconds later a startled Keiko was screaming in his ear as he carried her out of the room in search of her brother. She had a vice like grip over his neck as he rushed with her in his arms to the nearby nursery.

* * *

  **AN1:** I keep saying it's the last chapter, but obviously I've got one more left to write. I was reading a Tokyo guidebook that said there were over 1,000 tremors a year in Japan. So yeah, that's where this came. Don't worry I'm not writing a tragedy, there will be fluff in the next chapter. There's always fluff in the next chapter.

 **AN2:** When I wrote Keiko, I wanted her to be the girliest little girl to ever be. The idea behind it was that once Kazunari got Shin-chan on board (and it was totally Takao's lobbying) with adopting a baby, they both firmly decided on adopting a boy and so Keiko-chan came along and sort of surprised them both by how much they love being fathers to a little girl. Anyway, I knew she'd love Hello Kitty and Shin-chan being Shin-chan would probably spoil her with all this Hello Kitty merch. That's the way it's been since [NTMTBDLT](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1785538/chapters/3826192). But then I heard the [drama CD](http://youtu.be/1WoQuY1Xuko) (which is _so_ adorably wacky). It's basically Midorima trying to improve his luck because the Cancer-Scorpio compatibility that day is terrible. In their search for a lucky item, they mention Ketty-chan which I can only assume is a parody of Hello Kitty. I wish I had known about Ketty-chan sooner. I would've used Ketty-chan instead of Hello Kitty. Anyway, the drama CD is great. There's a UFO catcher game and of course, Shin-chan's really good at it and they collect a bunch of stuffed goats from the machine, he drops a ton of (more) money on a lucky item and Kuroko makes an appearance. It's just filled with MidoTaka zaniness.

Thanks for reading. I hope to get this story wrapped up soon. 


	7. Oh, what a night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Did all that movement scramble your brain?" The word "idiot" had been implied in Midorima's tone.
> 
> "Aww, that's mean, Shin-chan. You're a doctor. You shouldn't be making brain damage jokes," Takao whined.
> 
> A little pout formed on Kazunari's lips and Shintarō looked elsewhere to avoid temptation. Even now and despite his annoyance, he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him senseless which wouldn't take much effort, considering Takao was close to insensate most of the time.

Kichiro, having been so rudely awoken, was already standing at his crib crying and throwing his arms out for his papa to pick him up. Takao couldn't get there fast enough as he ran towards his son with a screaming Keiko in tow. Using his free hand, he pulled the terrified infant out of his crib and into the safety of his embrace.

He could feel his son's heart fluttering like the wings of a startled hummingbird against his own chest as he held both his children close. It hurt him. It physically hurt his own heart to see them like this, to hear Keiko repeatedly yell "Papa, Make it Stop!" on their way to his son's bedroom and not be able to do a damn thing about it. The sound of breaking glass, crystal, and porcelain had come unbidden and unimpeded, surrounding them in a chaotic, discordant symphony.

He had both bawling children in his arms and was heading towards the door of the nursery just as Shintarō scrambled into the room. The former ace pivoted at the last second, avoiding a collision.

"Takao!"

Midorima had lost his nightcap along the way and his hair was a frazzled mess, sticking up at odd ends, not that any of that mattered to anyone at that moment. He looked both confounded and out of breath as he threw his long arms protectively over his little family pulling his husband and young children down to the floor.

"They're just aftershocks," Takao kept saying. Whether it was to reassure himself or Shintarō, he didn't know. It certainly wasn't to reassure the children. They had no concept of things like tectonic plates or fault lines and they certainly weren't paying attention to Papa's panicked mutterings.

He knew from experience that the worst of the tremors were done with. Takao knew it was over. By its very nature, seismic activity didn't last long. It had been a matter of seconds, at most. It had to have been, but it felt like forever.

Their home was equipped with a panic room. _Of course it was_. Midorima _I-must-do-everything-humanly-possible-to-prepare-myself_ Shintarō wouldn't have had it any other way. It was a small, windowless room that for the most part everyone ignored. Takao had once tried storing their bicycles there to Midorima's disapproving glare. The matching pair of mountain bikes lay neglected on the terrace instead.

Clearly, the panic room had its limitations. Location was chief among them. A fat lot of good a panic room did them when it was situated, logically, away from the windows and at the center of the penthouse near the elevator shaft. The nursery - like all of the bedrooms - was naturally placed along the perimeter of the property to maximize the views that came with prime Tokyo real estate. They had no choice but to stay put. They couldn't get anywhere from where they were, at least not without traversing through a sea of sharp shards.

Having a panic room proved useless in this situation. So instead, they had taken cover under a door frame, the way they had been taught in school, the way countless other families around the country were doing right now. The four of them remained huddled there ( _well_ , more like three of them remained huddled underneath Shintarō) even after all the picture frames and various knickknacks had come crashing down throughout the trembling penthouse. Still, the temptation to run to the core of the building and down the stairwell to the ground floor was overwhelming.

"Are you alright?" Midorima murmured in his ear when things had calmed down and their children had exhausted themselves into quiet sniffles.

"Fine." Kazunari answered robotically. He didn't sound fine, not even to himself.

Takao curled protectively over two startled tots whom he refused to let go of, even to Shin-chan who was also trying to soothe them. Midorima settled for rubbing Kichiro's back, using his long arms to reach around Kazunari.

His infant son had his face buried in the gap between Papa's torso and axilla looking like he had no intent on moving from there. Midorima then leaned over Kazunari to kiss the top of Keiko-chan's sleep rumpled head. Keiko, who almost never resorted to thumb-sucking, was doing just that as Daddy whispered nonsense in her ear. _It was fine. Everything was fine, Daddy's arms were big enough to hold the three of them like this_.

They sat there in relative silence until Takao, who had the lifelong affliction of cracking up at somber and inappropriate times did just that and starting laughing. It was an unfortunate tick. Not that anyone particularly liked funerals, but Midorima especially hated accompanying Kazunari to them for this very reason. _Laugh out loud like that one more time and t_ _he next funeral you're going to is your own_ , he had threatened on the way home from his great aunt's wake.

The hawkeye's head had been tucked underneath Shintarō's shin for some time. Midorima removed himself from this admittedly comfortable position so he could glare at his lunatic husband like he'd lost his marbles.

"Did all that movement scramble your brain?" The word "idiot" had been implied in Midorima's tone.

"Aww, that's mean, Shin-chan. You're a doctor. You shouldn't be making brain damage jokes," Takao whined.

A little pout formed on Kazunari's lips and Shintarō looked elsewhere to avoid temptation. Even now and despite his annoyance, he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him senseless which wouldn't take much effort, considering Takao was close to insensate most of the time.

He settled for squeezing him, holding him tighter, grounding himself in the present, in the sureness and certainty provided by Takao's solid weight against his thighs. He allowed himself that much.

Although Shintarō wouldn't deign to call it one, it was for all intents and purposes a hug. A surreptitious one. They were having one of those clandestine moments of affection that would often transpire between the two of them without either of them breathing a word of it. Sometimes, when they were in bed together, Midorima would bury his nose in Kazunari's soft hair, breath him in knowing that Takao wouldn't call him out on this seemingly odd-for-him behavior, even as he could feel Kazunari's bare skin prickle pleasantly with goosebumps.

It was an unspoken pact, an unvoiced agreement. Takao knew it was best not to put his tsundere on the spot when he engaged in such uncharacteristic, affectionate overtures. Takao had long ago learned that it was best not to draw any attention to Shin-chan's displays of affection, lest they vanish without so much as a trace like soap bubbles. It wasn't that Midorima didn't want affection, he'd learned. It was just that Shin-chan didn't know how to feel comfortable giving it. And it wasn't too difficult to figure out why that was. _Fuck_. Shin-chan's parents really did a number on him.

"I can't help it Shin-chan," Takao said somewhat apologetically as he nestled closer to his husband, settling deeper into the man's lap. He wasn't laughing because he found the situation hilarious or because he was having a jolly good time. Far from, it had been the most terrifying experience of his life. Laughing was just his body's way of releasing all that pent up adrenaline. Still, it wouldn't hurt to defuse some of the tension in the room.

Shintarō's patience dwindled further. "Are you alright?" He demanded.

In Takao's opinion, Shin-chan's sense of urgency was misplaced. "I'm a little shaken up, but --"

Predictably, Midorima rolled his pretty green eyes at his irreverent husband. "I'll get my medical bag," he announced, interrupting Kazunari's horrible, no-good joke.

"Huh? What for?"

Midorima lifted Takao just enough so he could move out from under him, before sitting him down on the floor. "You're bleeding, idiot. Don't get up."

"Wha --" Takao looked down at the tatami around them and noticed a trail of smeared, bloody tracks leading into the room, towards the crib and back to the door. He had gotten it on the pant leg of Shin-chan's flannel pajamas as well. He realized only then that he'd stepped on glass in his rush to get to Kichiro as quickly as possible.

He knew it was going to hurt once he was out of fight or flight mode, but for now, he honestly couldn't feel a thing.

His foot was having a very bad year. It was the one he'd used to unintentionally stomp the guts out of a jellyfish this past summer and the same one he'd used to knock over the coffee table in the spring in an attempt to show Kuroko he could still do back flips. Takao wiggled his toes experimentally. They seemed to be in working order at least.

###

Kazunari was sitting on the floor of his son's bedroom with his back propped up against the wall of the large nursery. He was in much the same position as Shin-chan had left him. Now that things had settled down and there was no need to be under the door frame, Takao was starting to feel pain.

Trying to distract himself, he stared at the clawed foot of the bedded behemoth that was the Midorima family crib, trying to take in all the detailed woodwork. The heirloom furniture showpiece looked like it belonged in a museum, rather than a child's bedroom. It had once been Shin-chan's crib and later Shuzuko's. It would probably go to her next, though there was still _plenty_ of time before Shin-chan's little sister would need it.

The situation with Haru was unsustainable. Everyone knew it. Shuzuko may have stood up to her parents the other night at dinner, but neither she nor Shin-chan were rebellious by nature. Takao could tell by the way Sazuna was calmly dealing with the situation that she was humoring her daughter while biding her time until she inevitably caved.

Shin-chan's little sister was only a freshman and there was talk of law school after uni, possibly abroad. Takao laughed to himself. It would be hilarious if Shuzuko brought home a foreign suitor. Or better yet, a fiancé. He would pay good money to see the look on his mother-in-law's face if that ever happened.

Takao had two dozing children on his lap. They lay on either side on him, resting their heads on Papa's chest. He had thought he was going to have a hard time putting them to sleep again after all that had happened. But they were physically and emotionally exhausted and had drifted off on their own while Shin-chan was still in the room. He snuggled them closer, careful not to wake them up.

When they had finally decided to expand their own family, Takao's biggest concern -- aside from the difficulty of procuring a same-sex adoption to begin with -- had been Midorima's parents.

Shin-chan's parents had initially not been enthused about Kazunari's relationship with their son, to put it mildly. It had taken Shin-chan's father forever and a day to even notice it, but once the cat, _er_ Shin-chan, was out of the bag, all hell broke loose. It was a period of time in his twenties Takao did not like to think about much. Maybe it was his long-term exposure to persons named Midorima, but he'd become adept at the head-in-the-sand method of coping with unpleasant realities.

The important part was that Shin-chan's parents had come around to accepting their relationship, _eventually_. It didn't even take them that long to realize they probably shouldn't _ex communicate_ their only son, all things considered. In addition to going against basic human decency, there were other more practical considerations. They were either going to have to explain Shintarō's absence or Kazunari's presence and thankfully, they chose the latter.

Years later, they even traveled to their son's destination wedding, though there had been some uncertainty about whether Shin-chan's father would show up at all. He did and it was a lovely ceremony despite the calamity that always accompanied the congregation of the Kiseki no Sedai (gathering ominously like rainbow-colored storm clouds) and enough familial drama to put a Korean soap opera to shame. Takao would know, he loved watching those things (for a doctor, Shin-chan really shouldn't make such unscientific and unproven claims about them rotting Kazunari's brain). Sometimes he felt the temptation to write his own, loosely based on reality script.

With all that family history behind them, Takao and Midorima had had a lot to talk about when it came to the next step. With their children (or rather, child - they hadn't known about Keiko then), this _we'll-get-used-to-it-eventually_ foolishness was not going to fly. Their son would grow up with two sets of grandparents or one set, but he wasn't going to have a new set of grandparents suddenly show up somewhere down the line after they'd changed their minds.

The other concern was that Shuzuko would have children eventually. They'd probably have green hair, impossibly long lashes, and terrible eyesight. They'd look just like Midorima children, like she and Shin-chan looked. There was no room for a two-tiered system of grandchildren. Takao would never cut Shin-chan off from his family, but as far as he and the child they were expecting were concerned, Shin-chan's parents had to decide beforehand if they were going to be part of their lives or not.

It had been a difficult conversation best left to blood relatives and Takao had purposely stayed out of it. To this day, he didn't know what Shin-chan had said to his parents, but they'd chosen to stay. They weren't even that terrible at it. Sazuna especially had taken to the children, showering them with presents and pleading with Shin-chan to let her spend more time with her grandchildren.

###

Midorima worked in silence, all serious and doctor-like. From his vantage point, Takao couldn't see what Shin-chan was doing, but he knew the surgeon was wielding a pair of medical tweezers he'd pulled from his kit. He could tell from his facial expression that Shin-chan was concerned, but he didn't know if it was because of the injury or merely because of who had been injured. Shin-chan tended to overreact when it came to Kazunari and the kids.

He doused the wound with some kind of antiseptic spray which made it sting even more, before expertly wrapping it up with as much care as expected from someone who used to bandage his own fingers several times a day.

"It's superficial," he said in as detached a voice as he could muster. "I cleaned it all out and it's not deep enough to warrant stitches," he told his patient as he packed his things back into the medical bag. Takao could tell he'd scared his husband, even though it had turned out to be nothing. The man left the room in silence rather than meet his gaze, like putting away his medical bag was an urgent matter that couldn't wait another minute. Even Shin-chan wasn't that OCD.

Takao could hear the scrap of the dust pan just outside the nursery as Shin-chan returned to the area and cleaned up the shattered glass. He knew exactly where that glass had come from. He knew there were 22 more picture frames just like that one scattered around the penthouse. They were the aerial photographs he'd taken years earlier. The one Shin-chan was cleaning up had hung in the hallway between Keiko's room and the nursery. He hoped the rest had stayed on the walls.

Midorima reentered the room after he'd composed himself, carrying a pair of Kazunari's house slippers in his hand. He dropped them next to the hawkeye.

"Don't walk barefoot," he commanded as if Takao had no sense whatsoever and had every intention of tap dancing across the penthouse just as soon as he was out of Midorima's bespectacled sight.

"The photograph is intact," he reported. They'd been together long enough that Shintarō could easily deduce Kazunari's thoughts. "It wasn't scratched. There's probably a few others that fell down. I'll get them re-framed sometime this week."

Takao knew there were more important things to be thankful for, but he couldn't help feeling buoyed by the news. He'd had to part ways with those photographs once before -- they had needed the money when Shin-chan was still a medical student and his dad in a spectacular display of asshattery had threatened to cut him off financially unless he _stopped being gay this instant_ or some other such irrational demand. Takao didn't know. He had been spared bearing witness to that delightful confrontation. Since then, Shin-chan's parents had come to their senses (or as best as could be expected from those two) and Takao got his pictures back eventually. He had never asked, but he'd wager that his husband paid quite a premium reacquiring them years later.

Shin-chan was still standing near the room's entrance looking very much uncertain of what to do next. Kazunari stared up at him. Maybe it was the pain that was making his brain all loopy, but he couldn't help but notice one plainly obvious fact. _Midorima was tall. Midorima was very tall_ , even more so now especially given that Takao was sitting on the floor and looking straight up at him.

The hawkeye beckoned his husband to sit down next to him. Shintarō arranged his long limbs and settled for sitting in seiza at Takao's feet. With both hands, he picked up the injured foot he'd bandaged earlier, as if he were inspecting it. Except he'd already given it a thorough examination when he'd been cleaning it and there was nothing to see that wasn't already covered up. In essence, Midorima Shintarō was merely holding on to Takao Kazunari's foot even though he was pretending to do so for purposes other than simply wanting to hold him.

"Kazu, I --" He choked on his words.

Takao smiled at his adorable tsundere. They'd said things to each other many, many many years ago and had continued to say them in so many, many, many different ways. They lived together, they slept together often, they had married, they were raising kids together, and yet Shin-chan still had trouble expressing his feelings for him.

Midorima cleared his throat. "Kazu. This morning, I --"

Takao didn't get to hear what his husband was going to say to him because just then the house phone rang. The lines had been jammed earlier when they, along with everyone else in the country, had tried to call out.

Shintarō leaned towards their dozing children kissing a pair of tear-stained, chubby cheeks belonging to each of them before pecking his husband briefly on the lips.

"I'll get it," he said, briefly running his fingers through Kazunari's sleep-rumpled hair as he left the room.

Moments later he walked back into the nursery and handed the cordless receiver to his spouse. "It's your mother," he told him.

"Mama!" Takao suddenly felt very young. "Is everyone okay?"

The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon.

###

Buildings like theirs came equipped with enormous, state-of-art, subterranean shock absorbers that allowed the structure to oscillate during quakes while minimizing possible damage. It also made sitting atop a 42-story building swaying like one of those plastic, airdancers at a car dealership scary as fuck.

Still, Kazunari was certain they only felt a fraction of the tremors as he continued to watch the news report on the television Shintarō had turned on in the living room before leaving.

Takao watched the live coverage through tears in his eyes. He knew he should be grateful. The epicenter wasn't anywhere near them.

The first call he'd received was from home. He'd spoken briefly to both his parents and his sister (mindful not to tie up the phone lines for other families) and though spooked, everyone was fine, his childhood home was fine.

The next call they'd made was to Shin-chan's mother. She and Shinzō were fine too and she'd already gotten a hold of Shuzuko who was sitting tight with her roommates at her apartment near the Komaba Campus. Takao felt relieved after speaking with Sazuna. He knew there were families out there still trying to reach loved ones. As far as his family was concerned, everyone was accounted for.

It wasn't the first time they'd experienced a tremor. Seismic activity was common in the land of the rising sun and of active volcanoes. This wasn't even the biggest one they'd experienced together. The Big One (or at least, what he hoped had been The Big One) had occurred when they were in their old apartment, before they'd gotten engaged and back when Shin-chan was in med school. The damage then had been a _lot_ worse.

But this was the first time they'd had one as parents and that made all the difference in the world. It ramped up the fear factor to the stratosphere. He'd never felt more helpless than when Keiko was screaming in his ear as he carried her out of her room or when he scooped up an inconsolable Kichiro from his crib. Takao was shaking just thinking back on it.

He had assumed Shin-chan would stay home from work as least for today. Public transport (as if Shin-chan used any) had been suspended and driving anywhere on the now closed roadways was extremely dangerous and inadvisable for non-emergency vehicles.

Yet Shin-chan's job had sent out a plea (and later a helicopter) to any doctors who could help the exhausted and yet-to-be-relieved night shift staff with the influx of people seeking medical treatment from areas west of the city. Midorima hadn't even hesitated in agreeing to go to work. Lots of phone poles and cell towers were down all over the city and the hospital might not be able to reach many more doctors, he'd explained to a pouty Takao.

He knew he was being selfish, but Takao didn't want to let him go. He wanted his husband home by his side.

A lifetime ago when they'd been dating or even when they had been a child-free married couple, he would've thought Shin-chan was so cool with his medical bag in hand standing on the heliport at the roof of their building waiting for a med-evac chopper to transport him to his place of business like the protagonist from some Cold War spy novel. The only thing missing would've been his tuxedo, but surgical scrubs were a close second on the sexy quotient, as far as Takao was concerned. They certainly were easier to remove, he knew from experience.

A lifetime ago he would've had all sorts of inappropriate thoughts (and new ideas for role play), but right now he just wanted his husband home safely. He wanted his little family of four to be intact.

He knew Shin-chan was doing a lot of good out there. He would be working tirelessly, helping a great many people and the hospital, wouldn't have sent a chopper for him unless they were really short on staff. But Takao didn't care about any of that right now. Right now, he just wanted his husband to come home so he curl up into a ball next to him.

He vaguely recalled all the things he'd meant to accomplish this week - all the various social engagements, errands and other obligations that had seemed important to him until this morning. Sometime this week, he was supposed to switch cars with Shin-chan so he could take the neurosurgeon's car to the dealer. Shin-chan was much too busy to get his own tires rotated, or so he claimed. When Midorima had proclaimed Takao his servant their freshman year of high school, he'd only been half wrong.

Takao was not looking forward to this task because Shin-chan always complained whenever they switched cars and he had to drive Takao's car anywhere. Although their cars were identical makes and models, Shin-chan thought Takao's mode of transportation wasn't as pristine as it should be (Takao lugged the kids around and while Midorima's car also had built-in car seats, they were hardly ever used). When Takao returned the car to his owner, he would invariably complain about the preset radio stations and how Takao had moved all his mirrors.

Later in the week, Shin-chan was supposed to leave work early so they could go for their tuxedo fittings. Miyaji's wedding was coming up and they had both been asked to be groomsmen. He'd also planned on visiting his parents and wrangling his sister out of bed. He was going to make her look presentable even if he had to put her makeup on himself.

While Grandma and Grandpa Takao watched the kiddos, he had planned on taking Kazumi to the mall. Not for retail therapy, though good heavens she could use something to wear that wasn't held up by drawstrings. He had it on good authority, he'd bribed Riko at the game, that Kiyoshi had an appointment for an eye exam at the optical where Shin-chan bought his glasses. Takao was planning on accidentally running into a surprisingly still in the market Kiyoshi afterwards and then the three of them could go out for coffee.

With any luck, the Iron Heart's pupils would still be dilated allowing Takao to introduce his little sister in the best possible light. Kazumi was a good looking girl. After all, she resembled her brother, but the aura of despondent spinster she'd recently taken to carrying around with her like a fox stole really wasn't doing her any favors.

All of those things seemed important at some point, but now they felt hazy, like a cloudy day or a long forgotten dream. Eventually, he'd get around to them, but they no longer seemed so pressing.

###

When he'd gathered his wits, he called Kuroko because he was in the same boat. (He had tried talking to Kise earlier, but the blonde had worked himself up into a frenzy and Kazunari could only handle so much stress in one day. The commercial airline pilot wasn't even in the country. He'd flown out last night after the game. Disappointingly, he hadn't even stayed behind to talk to Kasamatsu).

Takao had briefly spoken to Momoi who'd confirmed Aomine was on patrol in his squad car today too and the new mother was fretting over her husband. Why had they fallen in love with men who were first responders? Their beloveds had left them behind, had rushed out into the chaotic world outside to help others. Kazunari was being a tad overdramatic, he was told.

At least Takao's had been home when it happened. Kuroko didn't even have that luxury. He learned Kuroko hadn't even seen Kagami since the day before. The firefighter had slept at the station on an overnight shift and had a really long workday ahead of him.

"Yeah, I may have overreacted, at bit," Takao conceded. "The thing is I actually feel bad about it."

"Maybe you should apologize to Midorima-kun," said the helpful voice on the other end of the line. Takao could hear Nigō howling into the receiver at the sound of Shin-chan's name. Of course, this wasn't the first time they'd talked about it. While, Shin-chan had gone shopping with his sister and mother, Takao, Kuroko, and Kagami had stuffed their faces and discussed every detail of the epic fight that had led to The Great Lockout. _And people accuse me of being an idiot_ ,  had been Taiga's helpful comment on the situation. 

"The thing is, I have apologized. _Profusely_. Believe me, I have. I was on my knees last night in the shower. And after that I --" Takao cleared his throat when the toddler on his lap looked up at him with interest. This was the part of the conversation where he was going to have to start spelling out words again instead of saying them. He was balancing the house phone between his shoulder and ear, freeing up his hands to brush her silky black hair into a pair of pigtails.

Keiko-chan was a bit miffed with Papa at the moment because one of her bunny rabbit hair clips had gone missing and he couldn't for the life of him find it. As far as Takao was concerned this was all Shin-chan's fault because he'd been a pushover and let her fall asleep with them in her hair in the first place instead of taking them off and putting them back in her accessories drawer where all her hair accouterments were meticulously organized by size and color. When they had starting talking fatherhood, he'd never envisioned a scenario where he was the strict parent and Shin-chan was the overindulgent one, yet here they were. His husband was hopelessly wrapped around their daughter's little finger.

"What if you got him a present? _Er,_ one you could find at a store. Like jewelry."

Takao thought about it for a moment before ruling it out. It's not like either of them wore much jewelry. Neither one of them had any piercings so studs were out of the question, unlike Kise whose diamond earrings seemed to grow in size every time Takao saw him. They weren't like Kagami either who had finally taken off the chain Tatsuya had given him for one Tetsuya gave him (Takao wondered how Kuroko dealt with that friendship, but had the decency not to ask). As far as he knew Akashi had never given Shin-chan any jewelry, but just thinking about it made his hand all twitchy.

Keiko noticed and gave Papa a scowl that was a perfect miniature imitation of Shin-chan's for pulling her hair. Kitten-grey eyes stared him down and Takao couldn't help but laugh at her adorableness.

"Shin-chan's not really flashy like that." They each wore their wedding rings and Shin-chan owned more cuff links than French cuff shirts. He also wore the gold watch his father had given him as a med school graduation present, which cost more than a decent annual salary (certainly more than Takao made in a year even when he was working full time). It was also inconvenient and troublesome because Shin-chan was left handed and it always got in the way. "The thing is. I don't even think he's mad about it which makes me feel worse. It's like he expects me to react like a crazy person or something."

"Well, there _was_ your engagement dinner," Kuroko reminded him.

Takao grimaced. He was never going to live that down. "I was drunk, alright. Besides, no one asked him to give that speech. He toasted only _one_ of us. Who does that?" Takao defended himself. "I can't help it. Akashi Seijūrō just gets under my skin. It's like he does it on purpose or something."

Kuroko's end of the line went suspiciously quiet. Takao knew on some level this conversation was pointless. He and Kuroko were close friends (He and Kise were maybe his closest friends outside his marriage), but Kuroko was also Akashi's friend so it wasn't like he was going to see eye-to-eye with the Hawkeye on this. There was something about when the ex-Teikō classmates got together that made Takao feel like a middle school outsider all over again.

Takao felt tempted to bring up Himuro and try to analogize the situation but it wasn't like Kuroko ever flew off into a jealous rage and threatened to throw Kagami's cell phone into the ocean over one phone call, several voicemails, and a series of texts ( _Fuck_ , was he the imbalanced one? In a poll over who was crazy he thought for sure Akashi would've clinched that title. There was the scissors incident for crying out loud and the time he'd threatened to gouge his eyes out over a _high school_ basketball match. Talk about drama queen. Surely, Akashi Seijūrō was certifiable. Right?).

Maybe Kuroko didn't turn into a green-eyed monster the way Takao did or maybe he was just better at hiding his true feelings.

At least Kuroko knew that Himuro was happily shacked up whereas Akashi's love life was one giant question mark. Takao felt deeply disappointed in the nation's tabloids. You'd think they'd have been able to dig up _some_ dirt on the princeling and heir-apparent to one of the country's largest conglomerates. _Hell_ , Basketball Monthly had done a better job reporting details, even if it had been useless, boring stuff like how perfect he was, how impressive his stats were, and that he had a white pony named "Empress." It wasn't like Takao had committed any of that junk to memory or anything.

Disheartened, Takao bid farewell to his friend. "Yeah. Well I guess I should let you go. I can barely hear you over this racket and we probably shouldn't tie up the phone lines."

"Enjoy it now," he called over his shoulder to his son who was stepping on his tipped toes and reaching up to bang the keys on the baby grand. "It's not going to be any fun when you're older and Daddy makes you take proper lessons," he warned a grinning Kichiro.

###

Takao woke up hours later to a strong, graceful hand on the side of his cheek. Musician's fingers adorned only by a simple wedding band identical to the one he wore were gently caressing him out of his slumber.

"Shin-chan?" He must have been in a really deep sleep, he never even heard the noise from helicopter.

Midorima pressed a finger to his husband's lips and Takao fought the urge to nip at it. The children were asleep on their bed and he didn't want to wake them.

Sometimes Keiko-chan liked to put Papa to bed and Takao liked to indulge her. She'd run her fingers through Papa's hair and hum the lullabies that he and Shin-chan sung to her and her brother at bedtime. Keiko-chan was very nurturing, even if she sometimes pulled Papa's hair by accident. Takao would pretend to fall asleep and when she least expected it he'd pop his eyes open and surprised her. This never failed to elicit riotous giggles. Except this time feigned sleep turned into the real thing and the three of them had fallen asleep on his large bed.

Shin-chan smelled of hospital soap and antiseptic. The clean smell had become so quintessential Midorima, that Takao rather liked it now. He found it comforting. It was the smell of his Shin-chan arriving home after a day of work. And Shin-chan arriving home from anywhere was always a good thing.

"How are you feeling?" He asked as he rested his hand over his forehead to take his temperature. A fever would be the first sign of infection. 

"Fine." Takao's response morphed into a yawn.

Midorima handed him a pair of acetaminophen tablets and a cold glass of water. "I changed your bandage. The wound looked clean," he informed him. 

Takao must've really been conked out if he'd slept through that. "How long have you been here?" He asked. 

"Just a few minutes." 

Takao looked at the digital alarm clock on Shin-chan's nightstand. It was late, almost 10:30. He noticed Shin-chan had placed a row of pillows on the opposite end of the bed in case the children rolled too close to the edge. There was little danger of that happening. Kichiro had practically burrowed himself next to Takao's ribs and Keiko's head rested on his arm. Shin-chan didn't look at all surprised to find the kids in their bed. 

"Did you eat?" Takao asked as he gently extricated his arm without waking her up. Predictably it had fallen asleep. He could feel that familiar prickly pins sensation as the feeling returned to his limb. He had eaten last night's spicy left overs and had reheated some shrimp Kagami had made for the children (shrimp was one of the few things Keiko ate without a fuss, most likely because it was pink). 

"They fed us at the hospital," Midorima responded. He placed a hand on Takao's shoulder so he wouldn't get up.

"Rest. I'm going to shower first."

"There are crumbs all over this bed," Midorima complained upon his return. He lifted the corner of the duvet and climbed into bed next to Kazunari. Shintarō had scrubbed himself clean in the shower (he smelled of triple milled luxury soap and no longer of hospital-grade disinfectant), put on a fresh pair of flannel pajamas, and gotten himself ready for bed.

Takao made room for him on the mattress. "Your kids are messy eaters," he replied sleepily. 

"My _husband_ is a messy eater," Midorima retorted. He picked up a wasabi flavored fried wonton and presented it the way one would point a finger accusingly to which Takao gave him a beatific, guilty-as-charged smile.

"I'm surprised that idiot firefighter hasn't eaten us out of house and home yet."

"I have a secret stash." Takao grinned sheepishly, then took the wonton from Shin-chan's fingers with his teeth and ate it. 

Shintarō looked disgusted, like Takao had broken every rule of social decorum. 

At some point in the mid afternoon, Takao and the children had retired to the master bedroom. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he felt safest holed up there. He'd contemplated the panic room, but that would've made him feel claustrophobic and would've alarmed the children.

Shin-chan eschewed all manner of electronic equipment in the bedroom. He felt laptops, smart phones and other devices had no place in their little love nest, though he too was sometimes guilty of violating this maxim. This was particularly true when Shin-chan was writing his research paper and his tablet practically lived on his bedside table.

Needless to say there was no flat screen TV in their bedroom the way there was in a lot of rooms in their house, so Takao had unplugged to portable TV from their kitchen and propped it up on a chair he brought in for that purpose.

He had spent the rest of the day glued to the news channel when he wasn't entertaining children, feeding children, changing children or answering phone calls from friends or family members. Shin-chan had turned the television off, but had left it there. 

Despite his grumblings, Midorima spooned Takao and the smaller man allowed himself to sink back, against Shin-chan's much larger body.

"How was work?" Takao asked once his husband got settled.

"My procedure was rescheduled to the end of the week."

"Ah." Takao responded. That was to be expected. With everything that had happened, the surgical ward would've been reserved for incoming patients and emergency procedures only.

"I spent the day in the ER doing triage. Mostly stitches, evaluating concussions, head wounds. There were a lot of those." Shin-chan sounded exhausted. "But nothing too serious," he was quick to add. "First aid, mostly. I felt like I was back in med school doing rounds." 

"I'm happy you're home." Takao yawned. "But I'm also happy you were able to pitch in at work." His earlier bout of selfishness notwithstanding, the Hawkeye could afford to be generous in sharing his amazingly talented husband with the rest of the country, now that Shin-chan was home safe and spooning him.

After some time, Midorima broke their companionable silence, "I woke up this morning and you were gone."

"I was in Keiko's room."

Shintarō tightened his grip around Kazunari's waist, intent on holding on to him. "I know that now, but at the time I was awoken abruptly and you weren't there. It was unpleasant."

The tsundere sighed against Takao's neck, disturbing the faint hairs there and unintentionally tickling him in the process. "I want to always wake up to you beside me," he told Kazunari. 

Takao turned around, held Shintarō's face in his hands, and kissed him. There was no heat behind that kiss, their children were in bed sleeping beside them. But there was love. So much love it overwhelmed Kazunari at times and rendered him speechless at others. A love he couldn't have possibly imagined back when he and Sasaya-kun used to throw darts at magazine glossies of the Kiseki no Sedai.

He didn't even want to think about all he would've missed out on if he'd carried his grudge against Midorima Shintarō past the first few weeks of basketball practice. The warm rumble of Midorima's laughter when Takao was positioned just right (with his ear against the tsundere's chest) so he could feel it, was one of his favorite things on the planet. Everything that was precious to him, everything he couldn't possibly live without, would've never been if he'd not made the decision to let it go.

Takao had known it was serious the first time Shin-chan had kissed him in the dilapidated confines of the Shūtoku locker room. Midorima Shintarō, who never took a shot unless he was absolutely certain he couldn't miss, had flown by the seat of his pants that fateful evening after practice, had incurred incalculable risks, and had told Takao Kazunari just how much he meant to him in that one, simple kiss.

"Takao."

"Mmm?" He responded sleepily as he rested his head against Midorima's chest. The low rumble of Shin-chan's speaking voice was also high on that list of things he loved about this man.

"Have you ever thought about going to the Maldives?" 

"What?" He yawned in response. 

"Nevermind."

Midorima would have to wait until this mess was over, but he could take some time off. He'd earned it. And the kids --. They were coming with them, of course. Midorima had made reservations for a bungalow sitting atop a crystal-clear, serene lagoon envisioning a couples-only retreat. He had made them with their wedding anniversary in mind, after all. But who was he kidding. Neither one of them would truly enjoy themselves if they had to leave a pair of teary-eyed children behind.

Maybe when they were older, teenagers who wouldn't want to tag along with their fathers, he'd entrust them to Takao's parents for a week or two. But he wasn't ready for that yet. For now, he'd have to buy an additional pair of airline tickets and change their reservations to a more family friendly resort. The room he'd booked wasn't a good fit for a family with very young children. Neither one of them would sleep a wink knowing they were surrounded by water.

###

They were at the breakfast table the following morning when their daughter made a very important and unexpected announcement.

"I'm gonna marry Uncle Ryōta," she said apropos of nothing, like the thought just popped into her head.

Shintarō choked on his tea. Takao spit out the rice ball he'd just finished popping into his mouth and almost fell out of his chair laughing.

The tsundere daintily dabbed the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin, before slowly and deliberately placing it on the table. He wasn't fooling Takao. Shin-chan was buying himself some time. The Hawkeye knew when his better half was imploring the universe for patience. He'd been the catalyst for that supplication more times than he could count.

Midorima glared harshly at his ridiculous husband, then tried to reason with the apple of his eye.

"Yesterday, you said you wanted to marry Daddy," he gently reminded his little cherub. She'd made this sleepy declaration last night, when he'd tucked her into her bed and let her sleep with her bunny rabbit hair clips.

Takao had tried halfheartedly to reign in his laughter, but he lost it again at Shin-chan's comment. It was too much. "Ppffft." He couldn't believe Shin-chan was jealous of losing to Kise in this nonsense scenario.

Keiko remained unmoved by her father's plea. "I'm gonna marry Uncle Ryōta," she repeated back.

Takao was huffing for breath now; he sounded like a circus seal. He was in danger of blacking out from lack of oxygen and the hilarity of the situation kept mounting.

Shin-chan was trying to reason with their toddler by listing all of the reasons _Kise was the Worst_ (a list he'd started back in middle school and committed to memory) like she was in danger of putting down her sippy cup, climbing out of her high chair and eloping this very minute. Midorima was blaming this on Aunt Kazumi's unquestionably horrible influence. The flighty extrovert flirted shamelessly with all of her brother's friends, but especially that idiot Ryōta.

Kichi-chan, who was far too young to know what was going on, took his emotional cues from his High Spec Papa and giggled loudly, unconcerned by the puddle of drool that was accumulating on the tray of his high chair. The happy infant added to his melodious squeals by banging on said tray amplifying the cacophony of domesticity coming from their breakfast table.

When he had finally recovered from his fit, Kazunari smiled contently at the sweet banality of the situation. Before he'd even realized it, order had been restored to their little family, everything was back to normal. _All was as it should be in their happy household._

* * *

 **AN:** Sorry for the delay guys. I've been trying to finish this chapter since March. Yikes! I'll proof read tomorrow and apologize in advance for the typos. 

 ~~I think we've come to the end of this series.~~ Never mind. I'm writing moar for this series. Stay tuned for future fics.

Thank you for leaving kudos and comments. It's been so much fun to write this pairing. They are so perfect for each other they should just become canon already and put us out of our misery.  


End file.
